


When I See Her

by unwindmyself



Series: you understand me more than most and you let me try [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, College Parties, Costume Parties & Masquerades, F/F, F/M, Female Friendship, Femslash, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Musical References, Rape/Non-con References, References to Abuse, References to Teen Pregnancy, Sleepovers, Underage Drinking, sassing all the misogynists!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-26
Updated: 2014-10-29
Packaged: 2017-12-06 13:46:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 20
Words: 20,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/736351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unwindmyself/pseuds/unwindmyself
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doreah's the new girl at school, Dany's the kind-of sort-of unofficial queen of what others might call the "wrong crowd," friendship blooms, sparks fly, Irri totally sees it coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. so we burst into colors, colors and carousels

“Oi, Dany,” she hears one of the boys shout, and immediately she snaps to attention.

To be completely fair, she’s only been _pretending_ to get a head start on her history reading (with the best of intentions, of course, and she does make a point of studying publicly since some of the others would do well to be reminded).  It wouldn’t have been hard to distract her here, with everyone spread out over a corner of the school’s courtyard and reveling in the brief free time they’re allowed.

“What’s going on?” she asks, seeing Rakharo waving her toward him.

“C’mere,” he calls.  “Someone for you to meet.”  Everyone in their circle gets brought before her, though she still isn’t sure why.  Some sort of formality, she suspects.

Quickly, Dany packs her book away and joins him on the stone steps, taking note of the brown-haired girl beside him.  She’s wide-eyed, sure, and fiddling with the sleeve of her blazer, but she seems much more self-possessed than your average new kid, which she assumedly is.  (That they, of all of the crowds at school, are the ones to have gotten a hold of her is likely telling.)

“Daenerys,” Rakharo says grandly.  “May I present Doreah Sutton.  Doreah, Daenerys Targaryen.”

If the family name sparks recognition for her, she doesn’t let it show; instead, she extends her hand for a straightforward shake, nothing like would imply nervousness based in even simple knowledge of any sordid histories.  “Daenerys,” she says politely.  Her accent, though hardly highest society, is posher than might have been expected somehow.

“Please, just Dany,” comes the smirky, almost self-deprecating reply.

“Dany,” Doreah repeats slowly, as if she’s tasting the syllables, and it sends a shiver of – of something not altogether foreign but certainly unexpected right down Dany’s spine.

“Doreah’s new,” Rakharo pipes up, even though that’s rather obvious.

“Just moved house, yeah,” Doreah says, and it’s just awkwardly enough that Dany doesn’t ask further.  Some sorts of laundry, she knows, are best not aired quite so publicly, if at all.

Dany nods, brushing tendrils of hair from her face.  “Well, welcome,” she says.  “It’s nothing fancy around here, but we try.”  To do what, she’s not quite sure, but it seems like the thing to say.

“I’m sure you do just fine,” Doreah replies, her smile languorously widening.

“I’ve got a free period,” Dany says suddenly, struck by inspiration and praying her cheeks aren’t as pink as they feel (or at least that the other girl won’t notice).  “After lunch.  Have you gotten a tour yet?”

“I got shown my classes,” Doreah shrugs.

“A _proper_ tour,” Dany giggles.  “What the administration would never think to share.  I’d be happy to help, if you wanted it, if you had the time, or...”

“I would,” Doreah says.  “I mean, I do.”

Sometime in the few seconds they’ve been talking amongst themselves, Rakharo has motioned another girl over, another stranger in Doreah’s eyes: this girl joins them, smiling all too courteously when they glance over at her and raising her eyebrow at the sight of them staring at each other when they resume that.  Amused, Rakharo snakes an arm around her waist and tries to kiss her.

“No,” she says flatly, shaking her head and nudging him back.  “You smell like cigarettes.”

Rakharo makes a face, Dany and Doreah giggle.  “Short leash,” Doreah observes dryly.

“It’s bad for him, he knows that,” the other girl says, waiting for Dany and Doreah to nod in agreement before she flashes the polite smile again.

“This is Irri,” Rakharo introduces when he sees that she’s not going to herself.  “Irri, this is Doreah.”

The two girls nod to each other, looking the other over in as friendly a manner as one can while still being clearly  – not suspicious, quite, but wary.  “Dany was just going to show me around a bit,” Doreah mentions, a preemptive peace offering in case she turns out to seem the encroacher.  “If you wanted to add to the tour or anything.”

“She knows all the places that matter,” Irri says lightly, shrugging it off.  “Besides, I should stay back.  _They_ –” and here she glances at Rakharo, who stares right back with a pout – “Need someone to be around to babysit them.”

They make idle conversation a bit longer, then with parting waves, Dany and Doreah gather their things and head off.  “I assume those two are together?” Doreah asks, glancing over her shoulder at Irri and Rakharo, now innocently bickering.  She could recognize their old marrieds act anywhere.

“Oh, yes,” Dany laughs – their readability has always been endearing, after all.  “For what seems like forever.  They work well together, just don’t let them hear you say it.”

“Promise,” Doreah agrees.  She could have guessed they’re that sort of publicly unsentimental, too. 

Leading the other girl through the crowd of students, Dany begins to play tour guide as best she can (usually it’s not hers to do, but she’s passable at it).  “So you’ve seen the courtyard, it’s – well, other people _use_ it, but it’s sort of claimed as our territory.  There’s one of ours there almost always.”

“Claimed it?” Doreah echoes with a laugh.  “How’s that?”

“I'm sure you’ve noticed,” Dany says.  “People here tend to stick with their own and give those who aren’t a wide berth.  We just get a wider one than most.”  Casually, impulsively, she takes the other girl’s arm and pulls her toward the front entrance, inquiring, “How did you get to school this morning?”

Puzzled, Doreah shrugs, “Walked.  Why?”

They’re in view of the main window now, looking out into the parking lot, and Dany continues, “Well, see all the fancy cars?  Those, most of them anyway, belong to the elite kids, the ones who fancy themselves local royalty.”  With her free hand, she motions to the side of the lot.  “And see all the fixer-upper motorcycles?  Well, I could tell you who each and every one belongs to – you see where I’m going?”

“You’re a secondary school biker gang,” Doreah surmises, eyes twinkling.

“Yes and no,” Dany says.  “With – perhaps an emphasis on yes.  Yes, though usually it's harmless.  And those other kids who like to play at being popular or upstanding or some such, they don’t exactly like to deal with the likes of us.  So they leave us alone, we leave them alone, and it’s a shaky peace.”

“You keep saying ‘we,’” Doreah begins.  “Are you – are you some sort of biker chick, then?  Are you _with_ any of them?”

Dany’s expression clouds over, the light in her eyes seems to dim, and suddenly Doreah’s worrying that she said something wrong.  “I’m not,” Dany whispers.  “With anyone, I mean.  Anymore.  It’s…”  And here she sighs, trailing off as she tries to think of how best to say what she knows needs to be said.  “A while ago, I was seeing – I guess you could say he was their leader.”

“Was?” Doreah asks before she can think better of it. 

“It was ages ago,” Dany reiterates.  “And he – he died.  Got killed.”

“Gods,” Doreah falters.  “I’m so sorry.  You know you could've just told me to back off if you didn't want to - well.”

“Might as well get it over with,” Dany says, sounding impossibly sad and tired all of a sudden.  “Everyone else here knows.  And anyway, it’s why – well, I wouldn’t say I’m _in the gang_ , quite, but they look out for me, and I for them.  Out of respect for him.”

“What was his name?” Doreah whispers.

“Drogo,” Dany says just as quietly.  “He was a good man, and he brought me to the realest family I’ve known.”  She attempts a smile, though it doesn’t reach her eyes.  “They’re good people, indiscretions notwithstanding, and we take care of each other.  It’s easiest when we’re a ‘we.’”

Doreah nods; it’s better, she can imagine, when you’ve got someone else to shoulder some of the burden.  “That’s sweet,” she murmurs. “Rakharo, he deferred to you like you were – I don’t know, a widowed queen?  You’re lucky to have them, I think.”

“I am,” Dany agrees.  “Anyhow, enough of that.”  And her smile is returned for true now, brighter even than before and more mischievous.  “Our tour.  If you’ll join me over _here_ , you can see the burnt bit of wall from when I threatened the student body treasurer with my lighter.”

“You rebel,” Doreah laughs.


	2. take my fate in your hands, we've got a lot that hasn't even began

They meet back up after classes that afternoon: Doreah hasn’t met all of the kids yet, after all, and the official unofficial tour ought to include nearby hangouts, too.  Kovarro and Aggo offer the girls rides, but Doreah politely declines, saying that if it’s not too much trouble, she’d like to walk, get some fresh air.  Aggo looks about to tease her about being afraid of a little motorcycle, but Dany gives him a sharp, warning glare, and he shuts up before he’s started.

“Were your afternoon classes all right?” Dany begins as they set off, very careful to ask it conversationally and not like someone's out-of-touch mom might.

“They were what they were,” Doreah shrugs, all amiability.  This question means, as far as she knows, were her classes interesting, and she's never been much for stuffy professors lecturing so that's debatable at best; she doesn’t think to share anything else, and aside from some snide overheard remarks (nothing too bad, just your standard new kid trash talk, and she'd expected that) there wasn't much that would be worth sharing in any sense.

They walk along in silence awhile, and Dany’s so racking her brain for something interesting to say that she’s almost glad of the opportunity offered by Doreah’s shivering as the wind rushes past, though she knows that’s ridiculous.  “D’you want my jacket?” she asks quickly, sounding for all the world like it’s the most serious concern.

Most boys, or at least the ones who fancied themselves debonair, would just drape theirs round a girl’s shoulders without a word, playacting as gentlemen in some overwraught Jane Austen story even though they'd never be caught dead reading Jane Austen; Doreah knows this, and it’s never impressed her.  That Dany asks before offering makes it a choice, somehow makes it all the more gallant, like accepting isn’t a weakness.  Doreah likes that.

“Aren’t you gonna be cold?” she nonetheless asks as she takes the jacket, slides her arms through the sleeves.  It's the color of dark chocolate and it's got the feel of real leather, not just the fake stuff like most kids wear; she wonders absently if it was a gift, maybe from Dany's dead biker boyfriend, and shakes that thought off as quick as she has it.  It wouldn't be her business even if that was the case, and she sure as hell isn't going to ask.

Dany flashes a sweet smile.  “I run hot,” she chirps.  “My brother says it’s a family trait, that my father said we came from dragons.”

“Dragons,” Doreah repeats slowly, not sure if it’s a joke or if she’s supposed to ask about the way one member of the family is present tense and the other is past; she’s especially not sure if she’s supposed to find what she perceives as whimsy in the other girl as disconcertingly charming as she does.

“Old family legend,” Dany nods, very serious for a moment before she breaks out giggling.  “Or maybe it just sounded good, I don’t know.  I’ve not asked.”

And that, Doreah figures, is where that must end.

As they come up on a brick building, one that looks like something from a 1950s movie like always seems better in the middle of a sleepless night, Dany gestures to it grandly.  “First stop,” she announces.  “I hope you like bad coffee.”

“Love it,” Doreah grins, nodding courteously as Dany holds the door open for her and playfully adding, “Thank you, my lady.”

Dany feels a blush rising in her cheeks as she leads Doreah to her usual corner booth and nods to the waitress, _any time you're ready_.  “So,” she murmurs, at a loss again once they've sat.

“So,” Doreah repeats, almost in a question.  She looks Dany straight in the eyes, searching for something she can’t quite define.

“Is – I mean, would you, do you want to ask me… anything?” Dany questions, faltering.

She’s so full of nervous energy that Doreah softens her expression.  She thinks that in most circumstances the new girl is supposed to be the anxious one, but she can see what Dany’s doing, trying to please.  Likely it’s what she’s most accustomed to, for all her rebel edge she does seem the looking-after-people's-interests type.  “You don’t need to do that, you know,” she says gently, taking that into consideration and assuming correctly that Dany will figure out what she means.  “Just let’s talk like _friends_ , all right?”

Friends.  Yes, of course. 

“I’d like that,” Dany says slowly, gazing down at the tabletop and willing her cheeks to return to a normal color.  “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” Doreah asks, raising an eyebrow.

“I – I don’t know,” Dany stammers, suddenly taken aback.  “For trying too hard?”

“It’s fine,” Doreah insists.  “Promise, sweetling.”


	3. find the perfect words that I've not spoken and I won't tell the truth unless you want me to

“I’ll be glad when exams are over,” Aggo grumbles, though he’s less studying and more laying on the cement of the courtyard steps with a textbook open on his chest.

“They aren’t so bad,” curly-haired Jhiqui pipes up, though it’s said with a slight wince.  “Anyway, we’ve got to get through them.”

There’s a chorus of assenting murmurs and sighs; Irri shifts her position, smacks Rakharo upside the head when she sees he’s dozing in the afternoon sun.  “What did I tell you about doing that, woman,” Rakharo mutters drowsily as he refocuses.

At that, she just does it again, rolling her eyes.  “What did I tell you about calling me ‘woman,’” she retorts.

“Point,” Doreah says mostly under her breath, smirking.

Rakharo’s sitting close enough that he hears it, and though he’s not going to comment, it shifts his attention for a moment.  Doreah is the only one present who’s not currently cramming; instead, she’s sitting behind Dany and weaving her long blonde hair into braids, apparently quite concentrated.

Finally, he has to ask, “You don’t even have to take exams yet, right?”

“I have a couple weeks’ extension, yeah,” Doreah shrugs.  “New kid perk, but it’s not like I’m exempt altogether.”

“Still, though,” Aggo chimes in.  “I know I wouldn’t think about this stuff any sooner than I absolutely had to.”

What they really mean, of course, is _why exactly haven’t you gone home yet?_ None of them object to her presence, of course; she’s not had any problem fitting in, she didn’t even seem like a little girl playing dress-up when she took to wearing a leather jacket she found at the thrift shop.  But spending time around studying that absolutely doesn’t have to be so spent, well, they’d be looking funny at anyone doing that.

“It’s not like I’m really thinking about it,” she says, nodding to Dany’s half-braided hair as evidence of her being otherwise occupied.  “Just killing time.”

“You know it’s not a thing,” Dany murmurs, turning her head toward Doreah.  “I could just come pick you up before, if you’ve got a better place to be than watching us study –”

“Don’t be silly,” Doreah interrupts, gently moving Dany’s head so she can resume her braiding.

“Pick her up before what?” Kovarro asks.  “Got a hot date?”

It’s obviously a tease, but Irri can’t help but notice that both the other girls turn pink at the question, that their gazes drop almost in unison.  Doreah just braids with fervency, Dany drums her fingernails on the book open in her lap, and what’s the kicker is that neither of them seem to notice the other is reacting just the same way.

Well.

“We were just going to get dinner at that new Spanish place around the corner,” Dany says finally, talking more to her book than her friends.  “My brother is _entertaining_ tonight, he said, so I thought it best to be – elsewhere.”

Irri and Jhiqui, who’ve actually met the older Targaryen, grimace in unison – it’s surprising to Irri that anyone can even stand to be around him long enough to go to one of his painful kissing-up parties, but she’s polite enough to keep that to herself – and the boys all nod, understanding at least secondhand. 

“Besides,” Doreah interjects, maybe a little too quickly, “I hate going to eat alone, so it’s a win-win.”

“Fair enough,” Rakharo says.  Maybe because of Irri’s influence or maybe just because he’s not wired that way, he’s the least prone to teasing or seeing something to tease about; it’s not like he’s never grabbed a bite with one of the guys, there’s nothing odd about it.

Irri would never _tease_ , but she is more naturally observant than her boyfriend, especially when it comes to people’s faces.  Looking at Dany and Doreah's faces, there’s something a little odd about it, not bad-odd but definitely… noticeable.


	4. we'll talk, see what conversation rouses when we're alone, when we're alone, it could be home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: abuse.

“Are you home, Dany?” a voice from down the hall calls.  It’s a male voice, if a higher-pitched one, and all Doreah has time to register about is that hearing it makes Dany instantly go stiff and sit up straighter.

Within moments, they’re joined by a man who can’t be anybody but Dany’s brother: yet the features so striking on Dany, the piercing pale eyes and silver-blonde hair, seem to wash him out impossibly.  Where Dany is soft and curvy, her brother is angular and sallow, inherently aloof.  Doreah is wary of him immediately.

“You’ve got company,” he sniffs by way of a hello, looking Doreah up and down.

Her brother’s presence seems to shrink Dany, and her voice is a fraction of its usual as she says, “Doreah, my brother Viserys.  Viserys, my friend Doreah.”

No nicknames for him.  Even if someone would invent one, it would never stick; Doreah can see that plainly.

“How come I’ve not met you before?” he asks Doreah, reaching to take her chin in hand with an expression that's all cool appraisal, like one surveying their territory (he does seem rather the entitled sort).  “I’ve met all of Dany’s whore friends.”

Doreah bristles at the word “whore,” averting her gaze studiously and jerking her head from out of his grasp.  “I just moved here,” she mutters, her tone like ice.

“Oh, it looks like I struck a nerve,” Viserys says, sounding not the slightest bit remorseful and honestly surprised that he might cause offense.  “Pretending innocence, are we?  Wouldn’t be the first around here to.”

“Shut up,” Doreah says quietly.  Her fists are clenching, her eyes won’t lift from the counter, and despite this rage, Dany sees that her brother is undressing Doreah with his eyes, leering openly and cruelly.  It’s making her sick.

Before she thinks better of it, she steps off her bar stool, takes Doreah’s arm, and pulls her out of the kitchen, all the while glaring at Viserys with fire in her eyes.  She guides Doreah up the stairs and into her bedroom, oblivious to Viserys shouting after them; there’s no lock on the door, but she quickly wedges a chair under the knob as Doreah flops back on the bed, leaning against the headboard.

When Doreah finally speaks, it’s to mutter, “Your brother is kind of a prick, huh?”

Chewing her lip, Dany nods.  “I’m sorry,” she says.  “I didn’t know he’d be home so early, I –”  She frowns, sits at the foot of the bed.  “This is why I hate bringing people around here.  I wish he hadn’t, that you wouldn’t have had to –”

“Dany,” Doreah interrupts, shaking her head and reaching for her friend’s hand.  “I’m not going to pretend that what he did was okay, because it wasn’t, but I need you to know that none of it was your fault.”

“I should have told him to step off,” Dany insists, voice wavering.  “Should have told him he can’t talk to you like that.”  Her gaze drops to their twined fingers and she takes a deep breath.  “I don’t like that he made you upset.  I don’t like the idea of you – of my friends in pain.”

“Oh, princess,” Doreah whispers affectionately, and Dany's been called “princess” before but this is different, not patronizing but sweet and almost reverent somehow.  “Knowing that counts for a lot.”  Part because Dany still looks like she needs it and part to hide her own watering eyes, Doreah pulls the other girl close and kisses her blonde hair.  “Let’s promise to look out for each other, then.”

Dany nods, feeling still small but determined.  “And fuck those who fuck with us,” she whispers, trying for a little smile that Doreah tries to mimic.

They stay like this a while, listening to each other’s hearts beat, thumbs stroking each other’s thumbs, and this silence isn’t tense or uncomfortable at all, it’s perfectly natural.  It seems to be the only thing in the world until it’s interrupted by shouts, by a rattling at the door.

“Dany, _open up_ ,” Viserys roars, a moment before he forces the door open and sends the chair crashing to the floor.  Both girls spring to attention, disentangling from each other with wide eyes like they’ve been caught at something somehow illicit.

“Viserys, I –”

“You don’t just storm out on me,” he shouts, pulling Dany from the bed by her hair.  “Disrespectful slut.”

Dany sets her jaw stubbornly, that fire flashing through her again.  “ _I’m_ the disrespectful one?” she retorts.

Faster than she can brace for it, then, Viserys’ hand comes flying across her face with a resounding smack; she barely flinches, but on the bed, Doreah recoils.  “Dumb bitch,” Viserys mutters, climbing over the fallen chair and taking his leave.  Having the last word is, after all, the only power he can really get.

Doreah doesn’t know what she can say after all of that, she’s shocked into silence, but she knows where she belongs in this moment, and that’s beside Dany and wrapping an arm around her waist for support that’s more emotional than physical. 

Dany allows this, even forcing another tiny smile; she doesn’t let the tears fall from her eyes, though they’ve welled.  “There are washcloths in the top drawer, bathroom the next room over,” she says, nodding just slightly to her bureau.  “Cool water usually works just as well as ice.  If you – if you don’t mind, I.”  And here she sinks onto the bed, falling silent as her fingers trace over the tender skin of her cheek.

“Of course,” Doreah says quickly, hurrying to follow Dany’s instructions and return with the damp washcloth as promised.  Dany murmurs her thanks, allows Doreah to help her position it even though that’s probably unnecessary, but from the solemnity, the reservation bordering on resignation, Doreah is beginning to intuit things that quite frankly terrify her.  She can’t help but to ask, “This has happened before, hasn’t it?”

“Not often,” Dany says, her eyes downcast.  “But yes, it has.”

It’s said with such hesitation that even though she’s afraid to hear the answer and doesn’t know if it will even be offered, Doreah has to inquire, “But it's only - I mean, not _only_ , but he’s never –”

“Not – not quite,” Dany whispers, ashamed but very much needing to say it.  “He’d, I think you’re supposed to call it fondling, he’d fondle me sometimes when I was younger, but nothing more than touching my breasts, or what of them there was.    And – gods, even saying it makes me sick, but he used to watch me sometimes.  In the bath and the like.”

“Dany,” Doreah murmurs.  “You don’t need to –”

“I did tell him which hell to bugger off to,” Dany continues, a bit of the resolve coming back into her voice for a moment before fading away again.  “I didn’t know how to say no to him when I was a child, I should have done it much sooner than I did –”

“You couldn’t have been expected to,” Doreah insists, gentle and yet determined.  “Kids can’t take that shit on, and it’s not their responsibility to keep dodgy prats from perving on them, all right?”  She takes both of Dany’s hands in hers, stares until Dany has no choice but to meet her eyes.    

“All - all right,” Dany murmurs, but she doesn’t sound like she means it.

“It’s not fair to blame yourself,” Doreah continues.  “Young kids, young girls, when the people in their lives, their families, try to use them, they – they can feel like they _know_ nobody would believe them, and anyway who would they tell?”  Her voice breaks, she reaches to comb her fingers through Dany’s hair.  “But they shouldn’t be embarrassed, it's - it’s not their fault.”

Dany lifts her head, trying to read the other girl’s face.  “Doreah?”

A shake of her head, and she averts her gaze.  “It isn’t an issue,” Doreah insists.

“It is,” Dany says.  “I mean, if you want to – to treat it like it’s nothing, that’s fine.  I don’t want to push you.  But I just want you to know that if you want to, you can tell me.”

Sighing, Doreah pulls back a bit.  “I know,” she says softly, and for now, that's all that needs said.


	5. I'll wait in the wings again until you find me out

“It’ll wash out in a week or two,” Irri says, thoughtfully examining the packet of dye – some sort of promotional freebie from one of the more alt shops in town – in her hands.  “It wouldn’t show in my hair, of course, but it’d go in yours.”

Dany wrinkles her nose.  She’s weighing the pros and cons of this, the disapproval it’s sure to earn from her brother and the amused look on Illyrio’s face (since he’s always been more of a host than a stand-in parent, he seems to think at least that her more harmless rebellions are funny).  “Maybe let’s just put a streak or two in,” she suggests.  “I don’t want to be too flashy or anything.”

“I think the little bit will be cool,” Doreah pipes up.  “Fire and blood, yeah?”

Irri and Jhiqui both glance to the dye - a bright, bold red - then to Dany, then shrug; Dany’s gone a bit flushed, though she’s not quite sure why.  (Well, she doesn't expect people to remember the fragments of odd family legend she lets slip, the arbitrarily-assigned associations and colors and mottos that have nothing to do with said people and really very little to do with her either; Doreah seems to have a way of remembering all sorts of weird little details about her, though.)

“Just a few streaks,” Irri agrees.  She stands, offers Dany a hand up, and to Jhiqui and Doreah she says, “We’ll be back in a bit, then.  The hall bathroom is okay to use, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Jhiqui confirms, even though it’s not like her folks are likely to notice one way or the other, given their hands-off parenting style (there’s a reason they do most of their girls’ nights round hers, after all) and even though she knows Irri will clean up whatever mess the dye makes so well you’d never know it was there.  “We’ll just be here.” 

She returns her attentions to Doreah’s fingernails, and for her part, Doreah looks only a _little_ like she wants to say “fuck it” to the manicure and go play with Dany’s hair, and anyway she manages to curb the impulse.

“I’m sorry if this is boring,” Jhiqui says, interrupting Doreah’s thoughts.  “I promise it’ll be pretty.”

“No, no,” Doreah exclaims.  “It’s not like that!  I just – go wandery sometimes, that’s all.”  With her free hand, she reaches for her glass of wine (Irri’s contribution to the evening, the logic being that she’s _so_ tiny the clerks will just assume she’s being honest about her age since she’d never get away with lying – so far it’s worked) and takes a sip.  “Thanks for this, you know.”

“What, girls’ night?” Jhiqui grins.  “Of course.  Once you mentioned that you’d never had one before, we _had_ to.  It was practically a responsibility.”  Content with the base coat she’s applied, she nods to the collection of other polishes. “Color?”

“The red,” Doreah says instantly.

Biting her lips to keep from commenting (after all, red nail polish is pretty much always a good choice, very retro), Jhiqui picks up the bottle, opens it up.  “So, are you all settled in here?” she asks casually.  Here the town, here the school, here their social circle, it’s open-ended.

“I think so,” Doreah says.  “It’s a place like any other.”

It’s said with the calculated nonchalance of one who’s been in places that _aren’t_ like any other and usually in a bad sense, but being that she understands that all too well, Jhiqui doesn’t press.  “Cool,” she says instead.  “You’re all caught up in classes?”

“Uh-huh,” Doreah agrees.  “I mean, I still have to go into the metaphorical archives occasionally, but that’s life.”

“That’s life,” Jhiqui echoes.  For a minute she’s just painting Doreah’s nails in silence, but that doesn’t seem very sociable, so she asks, “Have you got your eye on anyone?”

Doreah laughs nervously, pulling a face, and she makes as if to say something, but her first couple of attempts seem to fail.  “The guys are sweet, in a kind of badass teddy bear way,” she finally manages, smirking.  “But they’re not really my style.”

“Not faulting you on that,” Jhiqui laughs.  “Love ‘em like brothers, but they’re not much for proper dating –”

“Except Rakharo, of course,” Doreah chimes in.

“Except Rakharo,” Jhiqui agrees.  “And I’m not much for it either, truth be told.”

“I understand that,” Doreah says.  “Guys aren’t really my priority right now.”

Jhiqui nods again, concentrating on painting the last of Doreah’s nails, and thinks to herself how all of what Doreah said sounds valid, but none of it _actually_ answered the question. Maybe Irri’s onto something after all.

Meanwhile in the bathroom, Dany is just towel-drying her hair.  “I’m trusting you to make sure this doesn’t turn into a disaster,” she tells Irri very seriously.

“It won’t,” Irri says, waving the instruction sheet in the air as she approaches Dany and sits her on the edge of the bathtub.  “Where do you want the streaks?”

“I don’t know,” Dany says immediately, making a face.  “Where are you supposed to put them?  Isn’t it cool to do it underneath somehow?”  She gestures to her hair with a sigh, lifting pieces of it up.  “In there somewhere, maybe.”

Irri nods.  “Before we start, shirt off,” she orders.  “Bra too, if you’re worried about it getting dye on it.”

Dany contemplates this, then shucks her clothes in a hurry – she has her moments of social awkwardness, and she knows that, but she’s never been particularly body-shy around other girls – and tosses them toward the counter.  “How long do you think this is going to take?” she asks as she gets cozy once more.  “I mean, I don’t wanna –”

“Jhiqui and Doreah will be fine,” Irri interrupts, (accurately) predicting how that sentence was going to end. 

Dany presses her lips together, feeling silly and somehow obvious.  “Of course, yes,” she murmurs.

They’re quiet as Irri sections Dany’s hair off, paints a few stripes of red in carefully.  “This is going to be quite striking,” she muses, taking a step back to consider as the dye sets.

“Yeah?” Dany says hopefully, angling to get a glimpse of it in the mirror.

“Eye-catching,” Irri agrees, a playful lilt to her voice.  _If you want to catch eyes_ is the implication.

“O-oh,” Dany stammers.  “All right.”

There’s a quick knock at the door, perfunctory as Doreah just swings in anyway.  And promptly turns red at the sight of Dany half-naked at the tub’s edge.

Dany blushes too, and she knows the thing to do would be to make to cover herself up somehow and then look away, pretend this wasn’t happening, but she stays just as she is and finds her gaze traveling up to Doreah’s face instead.  For a moment, their eyes meet and the embarrassment seems to slide away; the second that Irri accidentally-on-purpose bumps one of the bottles on the counter and calls them back to attention is the second that Doreah showily covers her eyes and turns away.

“I, uhm, I just came to let you guys know that Jhiqui and I were gonna make cookies, maybe, when are you gonna be done in here?” Doreah rushes to say.

“A few more minutes,” Irri says authoritatively.  “The dye is almost set.”

“Cool,” Doreah says, nodding agreeably to the door.  “Cool, I – we’ll be out there, then.”

As soon as she’s gone, Irri returns to Dany, not saying anything but raising her eyebrows as inquisitively as she can.  Dany suspects that it’s damned if she does (i.e. says something arch or snarky) and damned if she doesn’t (i.e. avert her gaze) and somehow all she ends up saying is, “Her nails looked pretty.”


	6. I've sussed out all that I've seen through, I've sailed an ocean

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: mentions of childhood/adolescent sexual abuse.

The clock on the wall says it’s 4:17 when Doreah finally stops pretending that if she just squeezes her eyes closed tight enough, she’ll fall back asleep.  Jhiqui is passed out in the recliner, Irri is curled up like a kitten at one end of the fold-out sofa, but the pillows and blankets allotted to Dany are unaccompanied.

Careful not to wake the others, Doreah climbs off the loveseat and examines her surroundings; a flash of light catches her eye through the window, and it’s not long before she’s wrapping a blanket around her shoulders and following it.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” is the first thing out of her mouth as she slides the door shut and steps onto the porch.

Hurriedly, Dany flicks her lighter off, looks up at Doreah with wide eyes.  “I don’t,” she says.  “I just – I dunno, it’s a security blanket or something.”

Doreah nods, joins Dany at the little metal table with her eyebrows raised apprehensively, _is this all right?_ “I understand,” she returns, keeping her voice soft.  “D’you need – I mean, is everything okay –”

“Yeah,” Dany says, and she waves her phone in the air.  “Just got woken up by a drunk text from my brother and couldn’t fall back asleep, nothing big.  What about you?”

She changes the subject so fast that Doreah assumes she’s trying not to think about it, so instead all her only response is, “I don’t even know _what_ it was that woke me up, but I can’t get back to sleep either.  It happens.”

“Yeah,” Dany repeats, wrinkling her nose and staring out at the backyard.

Doreah stares as well, then, and her eyes catch on the tall trampoline in the middle of the grass.  Well, all right.  “C’mon,” she says, holding her hand out.  “We’re awake at this ungodly hour, let’s take advantage.”

Dany can’t imagine what’s meant by that, but she takes the other girl’s hand anyway, letting herself be led to the trampoline.  “Should we be jumping right now?” she laughs.

“Probably not,” Doreah says as she climbs on.  “Good thing I was just planning on laying here.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Dany exclaims.  “’Course, right.  Stargazing.”

“Or something,” Doreah agrees, patting the space beside her.

Dany clambers up, jostling Doreah just a bit as the webbing shifts under her, which in turn causes them both to giggle.  She lays beside her, and impulsively Doreah adjusts the blanket so it’s over top both of them, even if Dany doesn’t get cold.  (Who knows how much longer she’s been out here, and her skin is still warmer than Doreah’s.)

“Nice night,” Dany muses, smiling sheepishly.  “Morning, I guess it is.”

“We don’t need to talk about the weather, Dany,” Doreah smirks.  “I’m fairly sure that once we establish that the stars are pretty, we’ll have exhausted that topic.”

“Well, it’s more pleasant than me whining about my immature asshole of a brother, for example,” Dany sighs, eyes darting to the phone tucked in her cleavage.

She’s trying not to think about it, but she can’t help it, apparently, and what are friends for but to offer a listening ear?  “It sounds like you need to talk about it, though,” Doreah says softly.

“I just – I don’t know why Illyrio even takes him to those parties anymore,” Dany exclaims.  “All he does is get drunk and make a fool of himself.”  It’s with a bitter laugh that she adds, “The last time I got dragged along, he tried to trade the privilege of taking me home for some wealthy criminal’s favor.”

Beside her, Doreah stiffens.  She doesn’t even hear the part about the criminal or think to ask why his favor would be needed or desired, at least consciously, she’s just stuck on the first part.  “He didn’t succeed, did he?”

“Thankfully, no,” Dany says.  “It’s always reassuring when a _stranger_ has more honor than your only living relations.”

“Lucky,” Doreah murmurs, her voice sounding strange and choked.  “A lot of strangers have no honor at all.”

“Reah?” Dany whispers, fumbling for her friend’s hand.  “Did I – are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Doreah says, though it’s with lightning-quick resignation.  Dany’s looking at her so innocently, though, all guileless and sweet, and it’s not the first time this has happened: she suddenly feels like maybe she wants to get into it, though she doesn’t know if Dany _really_ wants to listen.  “I don’t – I wouldn’t want to lay it on you if –”

“I asked, I want you to,” Dany says.  “I lay all too much on you, after all, and remember?  I – I want you to feel like you can trust me, if you want to, that is.”

“I do,” Doreah says, startling herself with how much she means it.  “It’s not really something I’ve told many people about, at least people who aren’t psychiatrists or something, that’s all.  But I do trust you, I – I want to tell you.  You’re the only one here that I’ve felt like I _could_ tell.”

“I – good,” Dany says.  “Not good that there’s something to tell, but good that you think I’ll listen well, I – I will.  I’ll put in every effort.”  She’s babbling, she knows - product of the hour of morning/night, maybe - and after a moment she bites her lips together sheepishly.

“Well, you know I’m fostered,” Doreah begins, hesitating.  “My real parents, they – well, they were both out of work when I was a child, and I was their only solution.”

“Solution?” Dany repeats, her stomach sinking.

“I was twelve the first time,” Doreah says quietly.  “Bought by one of their – their _fucking pervert friends_ like I was a whore on the street, and little girls can earn big money, apparently.  This kept up for years.”  She pauses, takes a ragged breath.  “When it was found out, I was taken out of there, of course, but –”

Dany can’t cry for herself, she doesn’t allow that anymore, but she can cry for her friend, and she does, quietly at first and then a bit louder.  After a moment of pause, she throws an arm around Doreah, holding tight as she can without smothering.  “I’m –”

“Don’t finish with sorry,” Doreah says, trying to laugh.  “I’m meant to be moving on, or at least moving past, but it’s not as easy as all those psychiatrists seemed to hope, you know?”

“I do,” Dany says, burying her face in Doreah’s shoulder as she adds, “You’re amazing.”

“Why’s that?” Doreah asks, bringing a hand up to tuck Dany’s hair behind her ear.

“’Cause after all this _utter shit_ you’ve been through, you’re still here, strong as anyone I know,” Dany whispers.  “Stronger, even.”

“I don’t always think so,” Doreah mutters.  “But thank you, sweetling.  That means a lot.”

They don’t talk any more after that, but Dany shifts a bit and Doreah does too and they’re just lying entwined on top of the trampoline watching the sky.  Sometime after the sun begins to rise, Doreah drifts off, and Dany’s out not long after that.

“Should we at least get them inside?” Jhiqui asks Irri once the two of them have woken and discovered where their friends got to.

“I’d hate to disturb,” Irri says, equal parts playfulness and genuine care in her voice.


	7. why do I always draw triangles instead of words this paper so deserves?

“This seat taken?”

Doreah looks up from her notebook (allegedly she’s studying, actually she’s doodling a galloping horse in the margins) to see – a complete stranger, apparently.  He looks just like twenty other guys at this school, a bland-faced and built-but-not-too-built rich boy with a smirk and a casually untucked shirt and almost-disheveled hair.

All she can really do is roll her eyes.

“There are plenty of seats over there that aren’t taken,” she says, politely nodding at the other empty tables and chairs in the general vicinity with a very clear edge in her voice.  

Somehow what he hears is "no, please sit down, I would welcome your company," though, and he slides into the seat beside her anyway.  He's either oblivious to her disinterest or apathetic to it, neither of which bodes well.

“Look, I’m waiting for someone,” she tries again, a bit more directly.

“Your boyfriend?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t see the problem, we’re all just friends here.”  (Of course the only reason he'd step off is if he was infringing on another guy's property.)  He leans back in the chair, eyes her in that gross way she knows all too well, and she has to work to keep herself from visibly shuddering.  “You’re the new girl, right?”

“Not that new anymore,” she replies icily.

“Thought so,” he grins.  “Has anyone shown you a good time yet?”

Gods, he actually even waggles his eyebrows.  An oblivious, lecherous _cornball_.

“Oh, I’ve been entertained,” she declares, all vagueness.

As if on cue, Dany approaches, lunch tray in hand.  “Hey, I got you a Coke,” she tells Doreah, assiduously ignoring the interloper.  (She prides herself on at least knowing _of_ anyone worth knowing, and she doesn’t know of this guy, so.)

“Thank you, darling,” Doreah says. She calmly takes the drink, stabs a straw through the lid, and takes a long sip.

“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” the guy asks, like he’s the one being imposed upon.

“Hm?” Doreah chirps, snapping her attention back to him with pretended innocence.  “I’m sorry, how rude of me.  I’m sure that you know who Dany is-” She pauses to nod at the blonde, all formality - “And Dany, this is some self-satisfied random who’s decided he has nothing better to do than pester me.”

Dany raises an eyebrow as she takes her seat.  “Sounds tiresome,” she observes, nibbling on a crisp.

“A bit,” Doreah shrugs.

“I was just being friendly,” he defends.  “No need to get all bitchy about it.  What, are you on your period?”

Both girls roll their eyes.  “It’s funny, don’t you think?” Dany asks her friend.  “How guys are meant to feel so tough when they bleed, _war wounds_ and the like, but girls' naturally-shed blood is seen as somehow weak?”

“Pretty funny,” Doreah agrees.  To the guy, she adds, “In case that was too abstract for you, whether or not a girl is on her period is _ridiculously_ irrelevant to anything.”

“Spare me the feminist bullshit,” he grumbles, scooting the chair back and rising slowly to his feet.

“Spare us the misogynist bullshit,” Dany says sweetly, shooing him away.  “You can go now.”

Muttering aspersions, the still-stranger stalks off.  “Did you know him?” Doreah questions.

“I know his type,” Dany shrugs.  “Thinks he’s the gods’ gift to women and anyone would be crazy not to fall at his feet.  All too common.”

“It is,” Doreah agrees, after a moment reaching for Dany’s hand across the table.  They do this sometimes, squeeze hands and all, but this time it lingers somehow and neither of them mind.

“Oh,” Dany exclaims suddenly, slamming her free hand down on the table.  “Irri was telling me a bunch of the kids were gonna meet up at that new club on Friday night.”

“Yeah?” Doreah prompts, scrunching up her nose.  “I know that’s not really your scene.”

“No, no, I think it’ll be fun,” Dany says, though it does sound just a _bit_ strained.  (She's not a partier in the strictest sense, but occasionally it seems the thing to do.)  “But, I mean, if you wanted to get ready together before, crash at mine after, Viserys is gonna be out and Illyrio will stay out of our way and…”

“I’d like that,” Doreah agrees. 

There are a whole slew of other responses on the tip of her tongue, but she’s pretty sure that none of them would be appropriate.


	8. here it is in my hands, in my veins and overlands, it spreads like fire, seeking air

“We didn’t have to come,” Doreah says, stopping just short of the entrance to fuss with Dany’s necklace.

“It’s fine,” Dany shrugs.  “The kids are meant to be here, and it’s – we’ll have fun.”

Doreah glances inside doubtfully.  “You’re not just saying that?”  She knows that Dany will do that at times, pretend in order to appease people.

“No,” Dany insists, and even if it's not true it's true enough to her resolve.  “If it gets too much, we can bail out, not a thing.”

They flash their IDs – fakes, of course – at the bouncer and push into the club.  Immediately they’re overwhelmed by thudding bass and flashing lights, and for a moment Dany forgets not to wince.  She will never fully enjoy this sort of thing, try though she might.

“Dany, Doreah!” one of the boys – it doesn’t matter which one – shouts.  The girls follow the voice to a table in the corner, join their friends, request daiquiris accidentally in unison when someone stops by for their drink order.

“Where have Irri and Rakharo got to?” Doreah shouts.

Kovarro waves a hand toward the dance floor.  “They disappeared,” he says.  “Off dancing, I guess.”

“And you’re hovering here like a couple of wallflowers,” Doreah teases, leaning forward on one hand.

“Hey,” Aggo exclaims, looking put out.  “We’re not wallflowers.”

“No shame in it,” Dany giggles, accepting her drink from the waiter happening by.  “Not all of us are social butterflies.”  She’s not half the time, she should know.

Both of the boys make faces.  “Flowers or butterflies,” Aggo says glumly.  “Not great options.”

“Oh, yes,” Doreah rolls her eyes.  “We get it, you’re very manly, the both of you.”  She swallows half her drink in one go, then impulsively holds a hand out to Dany.  “May I have this dance, princess?”

Dany, for her part, takes a sip of her own drink and giggles again.  “You may,” she chirps.  She follows Doreah onto the floor, lacing their fingers together and trying to get into the spirit of things a bit more.  “I’m warning you, though.  I’m not much of a dancer.”

“Come off it,” Doreah says.  “I’m sure you aren’t so bad as all that.”

“Really, I am,” Dany insists.  “I’m not good at all this –” Here, she waves a hand to the crowd, pulling a face.  “You know, this sexy improvisation.”

Doreah laughs, though she’s very careful not to be cruel about it.  “C’mon, there’s nothing mystical about it,” she urges.  She takes hold of her friend’s hands, arranges them on her own hips and starts slowly to gyrate.  “See, you just have to _move_.”

“I feel ridiculous,” Dany murmurs, glancing anywhere but where her body and Doreah’s are meeting.

“You’re _fine_ ,” Doreah counters.  “Promise.”  She puts her hands over Dany’s, speeds the pace a bit.  “See, you’re not bad,” she repeats, glancing around at the crowd before settling her attention once more on Dany's face.  “You’re working it.  Look, and those guys are checking you out.”

Dany blanches.  “I didn’t come here to pull guys,” she mutters.

“That’s okay, too,” Doreah hurries to say, uncomfortably aware of the cacophony of feelings in her chest.  “We can just, you know.”

Possibly neither of them do quite know, but they’re managing.

“I like this much better,” Dany agrees, smiling shyly.  She steps closer to Doreah, slides hands up to her waist, and Doreah smiles too.  This feels somehow right.

They stay on the floor three and then four songs, twirling each other and laughing, and when they return to the table, Irri and Rakharo have taken their spots back; Aggo has disappeared, Kovarro is making out with a short-haired girl they probably have a class or two with.  “You two looked to be having fun,” Irri says to the other girls.

Dany nods, reaching for her drink; Doreah just raises an eyebrow.  “We were,” she replies dryly.

“You were both getting attention, too,” Rakharo adds.  _Take that as you will_ , he means to add.  If, after all, Dany was here to pull, she’d appreciate the tip-off, and he assumes the same for Doreah; if, like now, they’re not, well.

Dany groans.  Nope, definitely not here for that.  “Tell me who so I can avoid them,” she grumbles.

“Too late,” Rakharo frowns, nodding toward an advancing figure from the crowd. 

Dany thinks she’s seen him before, hovering the outskirts of parties and the like, and she’s twenty kinds of not interested; the panicky expression on her face sends a jolt of sympathy through Doreah, who’s just as disinterested on top of it.  Before she can think better of it, then, she grabs Dany and kisses her.

There’s a squeak of surprise, of course, but soon Dany is getting into it, parting Doreah’s lips with her tongue and drawing her closer.  They’ve forgotten there’s anybody else in the world until Rakharo waves a hand practically in their faces.

“Coast clear,” he says, laughing awkwardly.

The girls pull away, both immediately returning to nerves, and Doreah exclaims, “I’m sorry, I just thought maybe it would – I mean, with the guy, I –”

Dany takes a breath, turning her smile coy before she leans back in and presses her lips to Doreah’s, long and slow and needy and sweet.

“Well,” Irri says.  She can’t say she’s surprised.


	9. turn the glass into stars and your face is the moon and the night turns to you

Nobody, not the two of them or any of the kids or any of the spectators, says anything about the new development.  Irri and Rakharo treat them like they’ve always held hands over top of the table (well, they have) and like they’ve always stared deep into each other’s eyes while other people talk (well, they have) and like they’ve always sipped out of the same drink like some underage alcohol-fueled _Lady and the Tramp_ (well, they have).

Maybe this isn’t such a surprise, maybe they’re the only two who didn’t get it.

They don’t talk on the bus ride or on the short walk from the stop to the house, though once they step out into the rapidly cooling outside, Doreah very decisively takes Dany’s hand and doesn’t let go.  Dany squeezes back, and neither of them look at each other but they’re both beaming. 

Doreah has gotten plenty of unwanted attention in her life, and she knows more than a girl her age ought to about false romance, but the genuine article is still a bit of a mystery to her.  She assumes, rightly, that this _is_ genuine, but she doesn’t really know how to put it into words, so she just... doesn’t, and Dany (who, though sure of her feelings, is suddenly getting terrified that if she says anything about them everything will go awry on principle) doesn’t push.

There’s a light on in the window of Illyrio’s study, so the girls are quiet when they enter the house (Illyrio’s no parent figure or even an adult role model and he's definitely no stickler for the law, he doesn’t care if they’ve been drinking, but they’d rather avoid the discussions thereof anyway, considering that avoiding most discussions with him is Dany’s general policy); Dany presses a finger to her lips theatrically as she unlocks the door, and something about the showiness nearly sets Doreah off.  She manages to stifle her giggles behind her hand, though to go along with it or possibly to get Dany just as giggly, she’s extra-dramatic in the way she tiptoes up the stairs.

Once they’re in Dany’s room with the door shut, the giddy hilarity finally overtakes them both; they drop their bags, peel their clothes off quickly and pull on boxer shorts and tank tops from Dany’s pajama drawer, and then all Doreah can think to do is fall backward on the bed and laugh wildly.  Naturally, the way she's sprawled over the bedcovers looks like an invitation to Dany (it is) and she bounces over to join, her own laughter higher-pitched and surprisingly innocent-sounding.  (It’s not how she laughs at school or around the kids, usually; only a handful of people get this particular sound out of her.)

“Hey, you,” she murmurs, the bed shifting with her as she nuzzles against Doreah’s side lazily.

“Hey,” Doreah says, opening her arms to allow Dany to get comfortable in her embrace.  She smoothes Dany’s hair with the flat of her hand, grins at the way these touches make Dany stretch out a bit and then settle and sigh happily like a very pampered kitten.  This sort of behavior isn’t entirely unusual for Dany, especially when she’s had a couple of drinks, but just in case of those drinks (this wouldn't be the first time that snuggly Dany was pre-terribly-hungover Dany) or in case of – whatever, Doreah has to ask, “You feel okay?”

Dany scrunches up her nose.  “Of course I do,” she declares.  She appreciates the other girl’s concern, but in her mind, the answer seems obvious.  “I feel _lovely_.”  She rests her forehead against Doreah’s chest.  “Don’t you feel lovely?”

This is her way of confirming that whatever Doreah may be worrying about, she shouldn’t. 

“I do,” Doreah agrees after a moment, softening her voice even more as she adds,  “You have a way of inspiring that in me, I think.”  It’s maybe a little sappy, but it has to be said.

“Oh, Reah,” Dany whispers.  Sappy is more than all right, as far as she’s concerned.  Especially when they’ve had drinks and it’s late at night and they’re suddenly – whatever they are now.  She’d sort of forgotten what it feels like to suddenly just want, _consciously_ want, to be close to someone at every moment, but it’s definitely where she’s at now.  “Is it – I mean, could I – is it all right if I kiss you again?”

Instead of answering, Doreah lifts Dany’s chin and just nods.  Somehow these couple of hours of silent flirting and snuggling have actually made Dany shyer, what with her in-the-moment bravado fading, so it’s with extra-gentle care that she brushes her thumb over Doreah’s lips and leans to capture them with her own.

They kiss until they’re practically gasping for air; both of them are clumsy at first, getting the feel of the other’s movements and trying to adjust to the feel of their own, too, but once they’ve gotten the hang of it it’s heavenly.  When Doreah finally pulls back, arranges her arms around Dany’s waist, both of them are grinning like idiots.

“Does this mean I get to call you my girlfriend?” Doreah asks, her voice lilting like it’s a tease even though they both know it’s a serious question.

“I don’t know,” Dany replies airily.  “Do I get to call you mine?”

When they show up at school on Monday morning, they’re wearing each other’s leather jackets.


	10. the world dances to the rhythm of its own heart beating for you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote from _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ , act 3, scene 2.

“ _Never so weary, never so in woe,_  
 _Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,_  
 _I can no further crawl, no further go;_  
 _My legs can keep no pace with my desires._  
 _Here will I rest me till the break of day._  
 _Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray!_ “

Rolling her eyes histrionically, Doreah drops her schoolbook and lets her knees buckle, but before she hits the floor as designed, Dany lunges to catch her.  All attempts at proper theatricality are abandoned, as they’ve both dissolved into wild laughter; Doreah’s head falls into Dany’s lap, Dany’s arm is loosely draped over Doreah’s waist.

“She’s going to sleep, not fainting,” Dany chides, though it’s not a particularly serious complaint.

“It’s Shakespeare,” Doreah counters as if that's all the argument that's needed, stretching out a bit and looking up at the other girl innocently.  “Who says Hermia can’t be going to sleep _theatrically_?”

“She is fairly distraught,” Dany muses.  “But ‘ _here will I rest me_ ,’ it sounds to me more like she’d want to lay down carefully and close her eyes to the apparent horrors of the last hours, not like she’d – faint at will, I suppose?”

“Dramatic interpretation, darling,” Doreah singsongs.  “Besides, my way is much more fun.  Isn’t that the point of reading all this out loud?”

“If we really wanted to make it fun, we’d force the whole gang into it,” Dany laughs.  “Get them all standing round the floor with scripts in hand, watch it deteriorate into lovely chaos before a single scene had finished.  It’d be closer than most of them would probably get to reading the thing otherwise.”

“Yeah, but I bet you could get them to do it if you wanted,” Doreah declares, smirking.  “Your royal influence and all.”

Dany shakes her head, though with that oh-so-faint blush that means she’s mostly just accepting it as a compliment.  “I won’t push my luck,” she says instead.  “Anyway, we’re more than half done reading it, there’s no point trying to put up a living room drama club now.  And I think our two-woman show is going quite nicely.”

“Even with the questionable fainting?” Doreah asks.

“Even with,” Dany agrees, idly stroking her thumb over the skin of Doreah’s midriff that’s exposed by her top being bunched up as it is.

She’s not sure if it’s the relative newness of their being a _them_ , or that it’s a Friday afternoon and they have the whole house to themselves and she’d be bored of reading anything just now, or some other inexplicable thing, but even that slightest of touches is causing Doreah's heart to beat faster.  “I guess it does have the advantage of being _just_ us two women,” she murmurs, sitting up slowly and wetting her lips.

“It does,” Dany nods, watching wide-eyed as her girlfriend shifts to kneeling.

Then suddenly they’re leaning in simultaneously, lips meeting lips, and before either of them can think too much about it, Doreah has eased Dany back against the carpet and straddled her hips; the expression on her face makes her intentions more than clear.

And that, for the reasons of her own past and the reasons of Doreah’s, makes Dany suddenly apprehensive.  She nibbles on her bottom lip, looks imploringly toward a ceiling for the appropriate way to express her paranoia without coming off too patronizing or worrying, and luckily Doreah saves her the trouble. 

“If I didn’t want this, I wouldn’t have started it,” she says tenderly.  A part of her is tempted to roll her eyes, but she manages to curb that impulse – it’s no tiresome white knight syndrome at play, it’s just Dany’s winsome (over)sensitivity to every possible ramification of the injustices people undergo.  “I _promise_   I want this.  I want it a lot.”

As Doreah’s leaning to kiss Dany’s throat, Dany manages to say, “I want it too.”

“Good,” Doreah practically purrs.  “The thing is, princess, I trust myself with you.  I trust _you_.”

And after all, trusting – especially in this way – is no easy feat for her.  As someone who often struggles with it herself, Dany especially appreciates this reassurance. 

No more words are needed after that: then it’s just lips and hands on each other’s bodies as they fall into each other completely.

 

* * *

 

“Why do I feel like we’re not going to get anything done this weekend?” Doreah whispers against Dany’s flushed skin, nudging a blanket off of the couch to cover their still-close bodies.

“Because you’re silly,” Dany declares.  She turns on her side, rests her forehead against Doreah’s.  “I’m going to keep us on a _very_ tight schedule, it’ll be very productive.”

“Oh _will_ you,” Doreah laughs.

“With plenty of rewards for our hard work,” Dany adds, grinning positively wickedly. 

“I like the sound of this, I admit."


	11. you were like home to me, I don't recognize the street

“I heard she’s sleeping with a professor,” a ginger boy is in the middle of saying when Dany slides into her seat.

“Just the one?  I heard she gives it up to anyone who pays her,” another muses.

“She can't be too expensive, then,” a black-haired girl jokes.

“I’m sorry, who’s this?” Dany asks, leaning forward with a raised eyebrow.

“You know, that new girl,” the first boy says blithely.  “Doreah what’s her name.”

Even though she's apt to butting in on conversations like this on principle (they're disgusting and should really be stopped), this is the answer Dany realizes she had expected to hear.  Doreah is still new enough here, and newish students are especially easy to try to destroy, she knows this from experience.  She also knows how imbecilic and ignorant her peers can be.  But expecting it doesn’t mean it doesn’t fill her with rage, especially now, especially considering everything.

“Why do you think that?” she asks through gritted teeth.  The idiot’s friends are all wary – perhaps they know she’s tied to Doreah somehow, perhaps they just know her reputation for outbursts – but he keeps on going with a shrug.

“You know,” he says again, apparently operating on the assumption that if he says 'you know' enough she'll be goaded into saying she knows so as to be agreeable.  “She’s a whore, it’s clear.”

She doesn’t realize it, but her hands are balling into fists.  The girl’s eyes are wide, the other boy is making a face.  “I don’t see how you could know a thing like that,” she retorts.  “You don’t know her or who she has or hasn’t been with, and you shouldn’t know that because it’s none of your business.”

“Why do you care?” he laughs.

“Because I don’t think it’s right to just go around running at the mouth about things you don’t understand,” she says, trying her damnedest to keep her tone even.  “And whatever reason you have for calling her a whore, I guarantee it’s not a good one.”

“She –”

“That wasn’t asking for a defense,” Dany rolls her eyes.  Her tone has gone beyond sharp.  “And if it was, it’s a trick question anyway.  There’s no good reason for doing that.”

“Oh, stop lecturing,” the boy groans, ignoring his friends’ silent protests.  “You’re a bitch, she’s a whore, that’s all there is to it.”

There’s no time for him to brace himself before Dany punches him in the face.

 

* * *

 

When Dany gets out of detention that afternoon, she’s both surprised and not to see Doreah waiting for her, sitting on the floor with a notebook in her lap and headphones around her neck.  She doesn’t yet look as she says, “You didn’t need to do that, you know.”

Dany doesn’t need to ask what, it’s fairly obvious.  Careful of her skirt, she slides down to the floor too, saying simply, “I couldn’t very well just let it go.”

“I’m not your responsibility,” Doreah says quietly.  “And I have never needed anyone to defend my honor.”

“What am I supposed to do when someone says things like that guy did?” Dany exclaims in her if-I-don't-laugh-I'll-cry voice.  “In case you’ve not noticed, I’m not exactly great at restraining myself sometimes.”

Doreah sighs and pulls her legs to her chest.  “I know,” she says, still not looking up.  “I’m not mad, just – I don’t know what to do with this.”

“If it really did bother you, I’ll try to avoid doing it again,” Dany mutters, suddenly sheepish.  “I just hate hearing people be such sexist dicks, especially – ”

 _Especially to you_.  The obvious unspoken.

Doreah finally peeks at Dany and suddenly feels bad for her indignation: she knows that's foolish, she’s entitled to feel how she feels, but she can tell by the look on the other girl’s face that there was nothing behind it but nobility and a quick temper.  Neither of those things is a reason for making Dany feel guilty, gods know she gets enough of that kind of bullshit elsewhere.

“I know,” Doreah finally repeats.  She clambers to her feet, then offers Dany a hand up as well.  “I guess it’s kind of flattering, too, I’ve never had someone try to avenge me before.”

“I won’t do it anymore if you really are upset and you’re just trying to downplay it,” Dany frowns, though she doesn’t pull her hand from Doreah’s.

“I know you mean that, but I also know how hard it is for you to hold your tongue,” Doreah says softly, squeezing Dany’s hand.  “I like how hard it is for you to hold your tongue, actually.  It’s cute.”

Dany wrinkles her nose, trying not to laugh (or blush too much, even though she knows that’s inevitable in Doreah’s presence and knows Doreah won't mind).  “You promise you’ll tell me if it stops being?”

Doreah nods.  “You have my word,” she murmurs solemnly before tugging Dany toward the exit.  “C’mon, we’ll go for milkshakes and pretend none of this happened.”


	12. you gave me wings and I used them, I used them, I used them on my youth

“You’re home,” Viserys says when Dany steps through the door, Doreah right on her heels and sighing with the sudden relief of air conditioning.  “With your –”

“Keep it to yourself, Viserys,” Dany snaps.  “We’re going to be upstairs, don’t bother us unless it’s an emergency.”  Halfway up the stairs, she turns to add, “A zombie apocalypse-level emergency, not an ‘I forgot how to use the oven’ emergency.”

Once the girls are sequestered in Dany’s bedroom, pulling off their extra layers of clothing to beat the heat (or anyway Doreah's beating the heat, Dany's going along with it), Doreah starts laughing.  “Has that really happened?” she sputters.

“I wish I could say it was a hypothetical, but that would be a lie,” Dany says, trying to keep a straight face and failing miserably.  “Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“It’s not surprising, anyway,” Doreah concedes.  She tosses her bag down and falls back on the bed, straight into a pile of pillows. 

With a little smile, Dany makes to sit on the end of the bed, but she almost lands right on top of one of her stuffed animals, a floppy-limbed white horse; carefully, she picks it up before sitting and snuggling it in a silent apology.

“S’cute,” Doreah says, nodding to the toy – she’s noticed it before, but never thought to ask about it.  “Had it for a long time?”  It’s quite clearly a little kid’s toy, it would make sense.

Dany wrinkles her nose, taking a second to focus.  “The – no,” she exclaims, flushing.  “She was a gift, uhm.”  Her voice falls, her eyes stay fixed on the horse.  “From Drogo.”

Immediately Doreah feels horrible for asking, even though she couldn’t possibly have known so that’s ridiculous, but all she can manage to do is sit up a bit and say, “Oh.”

“It’s silly, I know,” Dany mutters, idly petting the horse’s mane.

“No, no!” Doreah insists.  “I mean, not every guy’s idea of a romantic gift is a stuffed pony, but I think it’s sweet.  I get why you keep it - keep her around.  You have a name for her?”

“Uh-uh.  And she wasn’t for me,” Dany whispers before she can stop herself.  “Not exactly.”

“Oh,” Doreah says again, not sure what else would be appropriate and feeling she probably shouldn’t make guesses about it.

“It was supposed to be a promise,” Dany continues, her voice flat.  “He got it the day I told him I was pregnant.  Are you scandalized?”

It doesn’t scandalize Doreah, but it does shock her – mostly because she’d never have guessed.  “By choice, or…?” she whispers.  She can’t imagine they’d have planned it, but then, she won’t presume about the lives of others, especially when all she knows of Drogo is the stories she’s been told and the photographs still scattered around Dany’s bedroom walls.

“By accident but then we chose it,” Dany clarifies, and suddenly Doreah thinks that the emptiness of her tone is sadder than abject sadness.  “Dumb of me, I was – what, fourteen?  Horribly naïve, painfully optimistic.  But we thought we could make it work somehow.”

“You didn’t keep it, though,” Doreah says.

“Miscarriage,” Dany replies.  “Adds to the soapy melodrama of it, right?  It was two weeks after he -”

“Dany, I’m so –”

“We’re not allowed to apologize, I thought,” Dany interrupts, trying for playful – that, too, is startlingly sad, mostly because she won’t seem to let herself be.

All Doreah wants is to take Dany’s hand and hold it until the pain she won’t let herself show goes away for true, even if it never does, and before she realizes it she’s done that, at least the first part of it.  “Still,” she says.  “I am, I – I can’t even imagine how that must have felt.”

“If I look back, I am lost,” Dany whispers, like she’s rehearsed it.  “I didn’t have any business having a baby, I was still a kid myself.  We didn’t tell anyone about it, even, we were going to wait and we just… never did.”

“Why’re you telling me now, then?” Doreah asks.

Tentatively, Dany shifts her position, moves to lay her head in Doreah’s lap.  She can’t ever say that things are hard for her to talk about, but she can do things like this, and she knows Doreah understands them.  “I wanted to,” she murmurs.  “Honesty and all that, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Doreah echoes, and before she can stop herself she’s asking, “Did you love him?”  She regrets it the minute she’s said it, of course Dany loved him and besides that, she doesn't want to sound jealous or something stupid like that, but there’s no erasing it.

“I really think so,” Dany says softly, tracing fingers over the bare skin of Doreah’s thigh.  “I don’t think I’d loved anyone before him, not really.”

 _Before,_ but _after_ is open.  Dany means to leave it that way, Doreah can’t help but hear it so.

“You’re my hero,” Doreah says suddenly.

“I’m a masochist is what,” Dany corrects wryly.  “I don’t know when to fold.”

“You’re brave,” Doreah insists.  “Brave and wonderful and flawed and lovely.”

Dany turns her head, stares innocently up at Doreah.  “If I’m your hero,” she says, “Then you’re mine.  Deal?”

“Deal.”


	13. but you found me on a screen you sit at permanently

“Hey, Irri?”

The petite girl lifts her head.  “What is it?” she asks.

“Could you… would you tell me about Drogo?” Doreah asks, wrinkling her nose even as she asks (it’s just that who else is she going to really, she doesn’t want to put Dany through that after learning what little she does know).

“Ah,” Irri murmurs.  She’s expected this for a while, personally.  Setting her knitting aside (she actually _knits_ , honestly if it wasn’t for her fondness for things like combat boots or her dagger-sharp black fingernails, she’d be in danger of coming off some sort of house mother) she meets Doreah’s eyes.  “What about him?”

“I don’t know,” Doreah says.  _What kind of shoes am I trying to fill?  Who do I have to match up to?_ She hates herself for being so curious, but she can’t help it.  “Just what was he like?  What were he and Dany like?  I feel… weird, not knowing.”  Well, everyone else in the group knows, shouldn't she?

“Right,” Irri nods.  She understands even what’s unsaid, though she has the courtesy not to say so out loud.  “Starting at the beginning, then.  None of us really knew Dany before they started dating.  She was new that year, our nine, his eleven.  I don’t think any of us really knew how to take it at first.”

“Oh?” Doreah prompts faintly.

“You’ve seen how most of our guys are,” Irri explains.  “Not particularly gentlemen, bless them, and he wasn’t much different really.  Sort of rough and tumble, not at all bookish, more for fucking than dating, all that.”  It’s always going to be odd to hear prim little Irri swear, but she doesn’t stammer over it, so.  “But he saw her in the halls one day and somehow instead of just notching her into his belt, he wound up _courting_ her, bringing her around the kids, trying to take her on proper dates.  It was clumsy at first, but he tried.”

“Sort of a _Beauty and the Beast_ thing,” Doreah suggests, smiling at the thought in spite of herself.  Dany, her princess indeed – except she was someone else’s princess first.  This doesn’t bother Doreah, not in a jealousy way, she just wants to understand it better.

Irri shrugs.  “Suppose,” she says.  “She was more timid then, no thanks to her douchebag brother, and I think Drogo really did bring her out of her shell.”

“That’s sweet,” Doreah murmurs.

“She helped him, too,” Irri adds.  “Got him to focus more on school, got him to be more conscientious, at least tried to get him to be a little less reckless.”

Doreah frowns, suddenly unable to look at anything but her own lap.  “But…”

“But then everything,” Irri agrees, laying a hand on her heart.  “It hit her hard, all of… that.”

“Of course,” Doreah whispers, knowing even more than Irri does how true that is.

“Harder than she let on, I think,” Irri continues, careful of her words.  “She had to work through the absence – we all did, but of course her most of all.  He was a good man, a bit hard, more than prickly when challenged, but good.”

“And she loved him,” Doreah says.  There’s not even a hint of question about it, of course, she knows this, Dany told her, but it’s the only thing she can think of to say.

“And he loved her,” Irri adds.  “They worked, he made her happy.  I didn’t see her happy like that for ages after.”

“I’m – I’m sure,” Doreah mutters.

“Not for ages,” Irri repeats.  “But you make her happy, you know.”

Doreah looks up, startled into what she can only think of as stupid silence.  Stupid because it really shouldn’t be a surprise, she knows that (even though it’s nice to hear that it’s not just her own imagination); stupid because she should have something to say to that.

“You don’t have to replace him,” Irri says, more softly.  “Trust me when I say that every one of us is overprotective of that girl, so I wouldn’t think this about just anyone and I wouldn't say it just to say it.  You’re good for her.”

Irri has a gift, Doreah thinks.  She’s answering the questions that can’t be asked and the fears that can’t be voiced; hell, she gets the ones that Doreah didn’t even know she was asking in the first place.

“And she for me,” Doreah whispers.

That’s the most important part, she thinks: it’s what they both need, what they both want.  It’s not quite a tale as old as time, it’s no great romantic tragedy like what came before, but tragedy is overrated.  Right now, this is good.


	14. there’s a sound out here in the darkest woods and I know my fears are understood

“Shitty night,” Dany comments, staring out the front window.

Doreah nods.  “I’m glad I got a hold of my foster mom before her power cut out,” she says.  “She’d have assumed I was here anyway, but I’d rather she not worry.”  She comes to wrap her arms around Dany’s waist, rest her chin on Dany’s shoulder.  “What about your… whoevers?”

Well, there’s not a good word for the collective that is Viserys and Illyrio, so.

“I assume they’re elsewhere,” Dany shrugs.  “Illyrio’s at some business… thing, I think, one of those weekend retreats with far too much schmoozing.  I don’t know where my brother is and frankly, I don’t care to.” 

“So the fortress is just for us,” Doreah chuckles.

“Fortress?” Dany echoes, cracking a smile.

“Sure,” Doreah says.  “It’s a bloody _gated community_ , Dany, it’s close enough to counting.”

“It’s not like it’s in a bubble,” Dany retorts (it’s not a particularly serious retort though, of course).  “I mean, we’re still getting rained on, we can still hear the thunder –”

As if she’d cued it somehow, the electricity flickers off, but neither girl startles particularly.  Doreah actually starts laughing at it, even.  “We can still get hit by outages?” she adds.

“Apparently,” Dany says, breaking away to rummage for her lighter.  “How do you feel about making peanut butter-and-jellies for dinner, then enjoying them by candlelight?”

“Sounds so romantic and old-fashioned,” Doreah teases.

“Hey, I didn’t say that’s all we’d be doing by candlelight,” Dany replies airily.  She flicks her lighter on, lights a couple of the candles lining the mantle, then hands one to her girlfriend before heading to the kitchen.

“What would you suggest?” Doreah asks, shielding the flame as she follows.  “Piece a quilt?  Sing devotionals?  We could even make that peanut butter ourselves, if you’re feeling adventurous.  That’s how it’d have been done back when, yeah?”

“Shut up,” Dany exclaims, laughing.  “You know full well what I mean and you’re just being coy to get a rise out of me.”

“It’s working,” Doreah observes.

“Oh, shush,” Dany says.

They don’t make the peanut butter, of course, and handicrafts and hymns are similarly foregone, but they manage to take care of dinner calmly before they fall to slightly more modern-traditional candlelit activities.  Luckily, Dany’s always been the sort to collect candles, so there are more than enough around the house.

In fact, by the time they’ve eaten and played and changed into their nighties, the mantle is practically one giant flame, glowing and flickering, wax melting every which way.  (Some drips onto Dany’s hand as she’s tipping candles wick-to-wick, and Doreah immediately frets, but Dany doesn’t notice and her skin doesn’t so much as go pink.)

“This is nice,” Doreah says suddenly.

“This is the worst storm the area’s had in years,” Dany counters, settling on the couch and motioning for the brunette to join her.

“I mean, _this_ ,” Doreah says.  The sappy _this_ , the them _this_.  “I can’t imagine a better way to spend a worse storm than with you.”

They’ve tired themselves out too much to do anything particular, but Dany still dips her head to press a kiss to Doreah’s shoulder.  “That’s a lovely thought,” she whispers.

“It suits,” Doreah continues.  “Spending storms with one Stormborn.”  She chuckles, though it’s not a witticism to any great extent.

“Don’t be silly,” Dany says.  “It’s just a name.”

“It’s fascinating, like all the rest of you,” Doreah replies.  “I promise I mean it sincerely.  _Daenerys Stormborn_ , nobody has a name like that.  It sounds like a fairytale princess.”

“I _was_ a princess,” Dany murmurs before she can stop herself.  “Not of fairytales, though.”

Like she so often is, Doreah can’t tell if it’s a joke or not (Dany has told her more about everything than she’s told anyone, but she’s still part mystery), so she hazards a tentative, “What do you mean, sweetling?”

“Nothing,” Dany says.  “It’s not important.  Not a nice story, either.  Family stuff.”

Dany has never quite explained all that, though there's clearly something to explain; Doreah knows what fostering looks like, and she knows whatever Dany and her adult brother living with Illyrio _is_ , it isn’t that, not entirely.  Furthermore, Doreah has never asked.

“Besides, I’ve always sort of thought it was silly, the Stormborn part,” Dany adds, changing the subject.  “Pretty obvious, too.  I mean, it’s like naming a kid who was born in September ‘Autumn,’ you know?”

“Maybe so,” Doreah says, shrugging.  “Anyway, I like it, but…”  _But I’m not going to make you talk about whatever you’re trying not to talk about_.  “Mind if I pop up and blow the candles out?  We should try to get _some_ sleep tonight.”


	15. but it isn't the shit in my head pulling me under this time

Doreah’s a lighter sleeper than her girlfriend, so it’s no surprise that she’s quicker to notice when Dany’s cell phone starts buzzing in the middle of the night.  She’s prepared to ignore it if the screen declares it’s Viserys or Illyrio calling, but it’s Irri – Irri, who despite being a night owl would never so much as think to call someone after ten-thirty unless it was an emergency – so she picks up immediately.

“Hello?” she whispers, turning on her side to aim her voice away from Dany.

“Doreah?” Irri asks, and it’s hard to tell if her voice is shaky or if the connection’s just awful.  “Are you – you guys, are –” She stops herself with a loud, shuddery sigh.

“What is it, sweetling?” Doreah murmurs.  She can feel Dany stirring beside her, though whether it’s a still-sleeping stir or a waking stir is unclear.  “Where are you?  Has something happened?”

Irri sighs again.  It’s unmistakable now that she’s crying, or trying not to cry.  “The hospital,” she says.  “I’m at the hospital, it’s – Rakharo, he’s hurt, he –”

“Do you want us there?” Doreah asks.

“Don’t, it’s late, don’t trouble yourselves,” Irri demurs.

“What’s going on?” Dany asks sleepily, shifting to rest her chin on Doreah’s shoulder.

“It’s Irri, Rakharo’s – he’s in hospital,” Doreah whispers, frowning.

And just like that, Dany’s fully awake and out of bed, rummaging for her purse with a determined expression.  “Tell her we’re on our way.”

 

* * *

 

“Oh, Irri,” Dany coos, running straight to her and embracing her tightly.  The both of them are silent - they're the only two who can fully understand what it means to be in this place, this position, and they share the wordless language of it effortlessly - but Doreah can see Irri’s shoulders shaking, and when finally they pull away, there’s a faint damp spot on the fabric over Dany's shoulder that everybody else pretends not to notice.

Everybody else: Doreah, trying for a reassuring smile though not sure whether to offer a hug as well, Jhiqui and Kovarro, both of them sitting on their hands on the plasticky fake-leather waiting room chairs.  Off Kovarro’s slight nod, Doreah eases herself down with them, nibbling her bottom lip.  Dany and Doreah are only so dressed as to be decent, leggings pulled on under and jackets pulled on over their blessedly tame nighties, feet shoved into flimsy flats; the other three are so bedecked as to suggest they came straight from some sort of biker party.

Finally, Dany and Irri sit, too, catty-corner to Jhiqui (Dany has one of Irri’s hands in hers, Jhiqui takes the other), and after a moment of hesitation, Doreah ventures, “Do you want to – to talk about what happened?”

“I don’t _want_ to,” Irri mutters – well, talking about it means acknowledging it, which she’d rather not do – but after a moment she smiles her tiny, conciliatory smile and amends, “You guys dragged yourselves out of bed in the middle of a rainstorm, though.  I owe you at least an explanation.”

Dany and Doreah both nod, and Jhiqui can’t help but note how their expressions – knitted brows, mouths set in lines – mirror each other.  A bit of cuteness in the midst of all the awful.

“I’ve told him time and again, racing is idiotic,” Irri begins.  “Not just, it’s – it’s _arrogant_ is what, like a stupid scene from a movie, having a _rumble_ or something – stupid.  He _knows_ that.”   She has to pause to collect herself, and Jhiqui squeezes her hand.  “Especially against older guys, especially in such shit weather as this.”

“It wasn’t a race _for_ anything,” Kovarro clarifies for Dany and Doreah.  “Not territorial.  Just a stupid older guy trying to impress his friends and Rakharo being the fool lured into – sorry,” he amends.

“No, no, he is a fool,” Irri grumbles, pouting defiantly.  Just because he's hurt doesn't mean he's a perfect saint.  “He was trying to impress just as much.  Show he can play with the big boys.”  More tears spring to her eyes, and Dany reaches to wipe them away as unobtrusively as possible.

“He’s been hurt worse than this before,” Kovarro declares by way of offering comfort.  He almost adds something about how this time there weren’t even any bullet wounds, but he thinks better of it.

Irri just shoots him a disbelieving look – the same one she’s used time and again to shut her boyfriend up – and retorts, “ _Cervical fracture_ , Kovarro.  There’s not much worse than a goddamn broken neck.”

Dany and Doreah’s mouths drop open in unison; fear, honest to goodness fear, flashes in Dany’s eyes and when Doreah spots it, she shivers.  Somewhat for their benefit and somewhat for Irri’s, Kovarro counters, “Key word, fracture.  Nobody’s said anything about there being spinal – issues.”

“Nobody’s _not_ said it, either!” Irri exclaims petulantly, his casualness more responsible for her snapping than the situation itself.  “The doctors or the nurses or – or whoever, they wouldn’t tell us jack _shit_ , none of us are his relatives.”  She takes a calming breath before explaining to the girls, “His older brother’s here somewhere, he’s the one they’re updating about that stuff, and _he_ hasn’t been rushing out here every five minutes to give us new things to worry about.”

Said with some mixture of resignation – maybe it’s better, she doesn’t want to panic about every new detail – and disdain – she’s holding it together, she hasn’t fully stopped crying since she first knelt over Rakharo’s unconscious body but she’s not hysterical, she could take it.

“Do you want someone to run go find him and ask?” Doreah suggests.  (It’s a little selfish; it’s easier for her to keep moving in times like these.)

“Not worth it,” Jhiqui sighs.  “When something changes, he’ll let us know.  Till then…”

“I’ll go for snacks, then,” Doreah offers.  “I’d be right in assuming none of you’ve eaten in a while, wouldn’t I?”

Absently, Irri nods.  “Something chocolate?” she asks, sounding more hopeful than she has in hours.

“Done,” Doreah promises, rising from her seat.  As she heads out, she crosses behind Irri to squeeze her shoulder comfortingly, and Irri looks up at her with some measure of grateful affection.

“I’ll go with,” Kovarro says suddenly, jumping up to join.  “If you’re getting goodies for everyone, you’ll need help carrying.”  He gets just as restless, really.

It takes them a good fifteen minutes to fetch snacks (mostly candy, a couple soft drinks to split amongst everyone) and when they return, arms loaded, they’re startled to see Irri practically laying on the not-quite-sofa, curled up on her side with her pumps kicked to the floor and her head in Dany’s lap.  It’s the hardest she’s been crying all night; Dany’s eyes are watery too.

“What’s going on?” Doreah asks in a whisper, dreading the answer.

“He’s going to be okay,” Dany says, a tremor in her voice and a faint smile on her lips.  “It’s going to be all right.”


	16. I separated all the things that I have hated with the victories I’ve won

It’s even later into the night/morning when they finally leave the hospital, and even that is only at Irri’s insisting.  “He’s not going to be awake for a while yet, and he’ll be in no condition to receive,” she says, promising to call them back when it would be better – she, naturally, has already had one of the boys rush to her house and fetch her homework, and she doesn’t intend to leave her boyfriend’s bedside until someone makes her.

“If you’re sure,” Dany murmurs, all seriousness.

“I’m sure,” Irri agrees.  She’s glad of their coming, glad of the comfort they can offer, but she’s also not so selfish as to keep them here (especially Dany: she’d never say anything about it, but as the hours wear on it becomes more apparent that she’s seeing ghosts, unwillingly being reminded of a different late night spent in the emergency department).

So Dany and Doreah say their see-you-laters, call a cab and head back to the house in near-silence.  Dany slips her hand through Doreah’s, and she’s _almost_ holding too tight (like she’s worried, like she needs reassurance) but Doreah doesn’t mind, and she doesn’t let go.

When they arrive, though, Dany’s stomach sinks.  The power has come back on, apparently, and there’s a single lit window.  “Shit,” she whispers.

“Dany?” Doreah says.

No explanation is needed, though; they come in through the front door and before they’ve so much as taken their shoes off Viserys is upon them.  “Where the _hell_ have you been?” he shouts.

“I could ask you the same,” Dany mutters, “But I don’t really care.”

“Out with your tramps and criminals?” he continues as if she hadn’t even spoken.  “What dive did you end up in tonight?  In whose arms?”

Dany tenses, but she keeps her voice even.   It's possible she's about to explain – possible, too, that she won't, it's none of his business – until he says the second part and there's only one response to make.  “Her arms, like I always am.”

Strictly speaking, Dany has never explained to her brother that she and Doreah are dating.  Considering the other girl came round all the time beforehand, it wasn’t anything unusual; they’d always done things like hold hands and lay on each other while they watched movies, so it was never cause for scrutiny (at least beyond that which he gives anyway).  She can’t remember ever even coming out to him, having the “guess what, big brother, sometimes I’m attracted to women” talk.

But it’s not like any of it is a particular secret, either.

“What,” he laughs, “Putting on some _show_ to get yourselves free drinks?”

Doreah squeezes Dany’s hand, a silent reassurance – _I’ve got you_.

“Of course that’s what you’d think,” Dany retorts.  “Gods forbid that two girls would be together for any reason other than to satisfy male fantasies.”

Viserys raises an eyebrow skeptically.  He knows (or he thinks he knows) how these things work.

“Gods forbid that it might not just be love,” Dany continues.

She’s bracing herself like she’s afraid it’s going to get her smacked, and for a moment it looks like it just might, given the confusion and anger all over Viserys’ face.  Doreah inches yet closer to her girlfriend, protectively stepping in front of her and trying her hardest not to dwell on the fact that the l-word was just dropped.

Finally, Viserys shakes his head sadly.  “I don’t like who you’ve become, sister,” he says.  “All insolent as you are, passing time with –” Here, he scoffs at Doreah.  “People so low.  Father would have been loath to see his kingdom come to this.”  With that, he stomps up the stairs, and Dany lets go of Doreah’s hand, heads for the couch with a dazed expression.

After a moment, Doreah joins her, frowning.  “What kingdom?” she whispers.  “What is he talking about?”

“It’s that not-nice story I’d mentioned,” Dany cautions.

“It’s a not-nice story about your family,” Doreah replies.  “Not about you.  It won’t change anything.”

So Dany takes in a breath, draws her knees to her chest.  Ashamed isn’t quite the word for it, she believes what Doreah told her, but she still can’t bring herself to look anywhere but the hardwood floor.  “When my mother was pregnant with me, my father was murdered,” she begins, her voice flat.  “He was the king, self-styled, of the London criminal underground.”  She pauses, expecting some horrified reaction even after the promises, but all Doreah does is scoot closer, ready to offer a comforting touch.  “He was quite powerful, but quite mad, and one of his lieutenants, I believe, was the one who did him in.  My brother, the older one, tried to defend the territory like a good prince ought, but it was quite a coup de grace, he got killed too, and his whole family, wife, children, all of them.  Leave no stone unturned.”

“Gods,” Doreah whispers.

“My mother, she – died giving birth to me,” Dany continues.   “Loyal friends of the family got Viserys and I to safety, and we’ve been passed around said friends for my whole life.  Illyrio is one of them, you see.  He has the means to protect us, and to protect what remains of our fortune.”

The last big piece of the puzzle for Doreah: the mystery of the other girl’s situation solved.  “Good grief,” she whispers, because nothing else comes to her.

Dany’s slipped into smirking, playing with the ends of her hair.  “It’s the remains, I think, that keep him and others doing it,” she explains.  “Viserys is hell-bent on rising up and taking back what he sees as his throne, so there’s a promise of power, too.”

“Kings and thrones,” Doreah murmurs.  “You really _are_ a princess, you wear it so naturally.”

“I don’t know what I am anymore,” Dany says.  “If things had gone differently, I might be living that life.  I don’t know that I’d like it, though.”

“You’re my princess, at least,” Doreah says.  She knows it’s sappy, but it suits, and it seems to make Dany happy.

“I know I like that,” she agrees.  “It’s better than being the criminal princess Viserys still imagines me, sitting on my hands all docile and supportive, there to be used as needed, while he runs some nefarious empire.  He wouldn’t know how to be nefarious if there was a how-to manual.”

Doreah stifles a laugh.  “You’re sort of a miracle, I think,” she declares. “It takes a special kind of person to not get bogged down in shit like you’ve come from.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m pure and holy, or whatever the opposite number of criminally obsessed is,” Dany says.  “What with the gang, I’m closer to the family’s old world than Viserys has ever been, in a way.”

Ready to ease back if need be, Doreah leans against Dany’s shoulder.  “But you’re still a good person,” she whispers.  “And so are they.”

“Less bad, anyway,” Dany replies, and she squeezes Doreah’s hand.

“And I love you, too,” Doreah adds, leaning up for a kiss.


	17. breathe air you're not used to, tread floors you don't fall through

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: evidence of offscreen abuse.

“Hey, and look who’s here,” Doreah coos.

He’s still got a neck brace, and his hand is twined with Irri’s just that much tighter than usual, but there’s Rakharo, smiling tightly.  Irri has his bag slung over her shoulder, on top of her own, but nobody even thinks about making a joke about how she looks like she’s going to fall over (she doesn’t sit for that kind of teasing).

“Do we have permission to hug you?” Jhiqui asks.

“Long’s you’re gentle about it,” Rakharo says, opening his arms wide to allow himself to be swarmed.  None of the guys are big huggers, but Jhiqui and Doreah and Dany all oblige, giggling.

“Come on, you guys,” Irri says after a minute, trying not to laugh as well.  “We all still have places to be.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to fault me for being a few minutes late,” Rakharo says archly, but the girls are disentangling themselves anyway.

“It’s good to have you back,” Dany whispers, ruffling his hair affectionately.

 

* * *

 

They go for coffee and things after school, the lot of them – walking, Rakharo isn’t allowed back on his motorcycle till he’s fully healed (this is as much Irri’s doing as the doctors’ in truth) – and it feels so carefree it’s rather obviously a lie, but it's a mostly harmless one.

“Guessing you’ve already caught him up on all the worthwhile stories,” Aggo says to Irri once they’re settled in their booth.

“What stories are those?” Irri asks with a caustic laugh.  “It’s been dull as dirt lately.  Not a single adventure to speak of.”

“I haven’t heard any.  Are you trying to make me feel better for having missed out?” Rakharo chuckles.

“Actually, no,” Dany interjects.  “There really hasn’t been anything going on.” 

Shrugs all around the table; well, it’s true.  Even for just-slightly-criminals like them, it’s been a rather slow couple of weeks.  (Nobody officially decided they should hold off on doing anything of note while Rakharo was out of commission, but it’s been the unspoken consensus.)

“Fine,” Rakharo says.  “Then feed me stupid gossip.  You can only watch _Top Gear_ repeats and read magazines for so long before you need something else to fill your head.”

Before anyone can offer anything, though, Dany goes to push a piece of her hair back and her shirtsleeve slides up, revealing a bruise nearly taking up the whole of her forearm.  Immediately Doreah catches her wrist and looks her girlfriend in the eye.  “What the fuck, Dany?” she whispers.

“What?  What’s wrong?” Rakharo asks, and Irri and Kovarro echo him.

Sighing, Dany lays her arm on the table, sighing loudly and glancing up at the ceiling to avoid all of their concerned faces. 

“Something else to fill your head, I suppose,” she says, trying to smile.

“I wouldn’t object if I wasn’t the only clumsy idiot here,” Rakharo declares, “But something tells me this isn’t just from you falling down the stairs.”

“No,” Dany manages.

“Was this your brother again?” Doreah asks.

Dany’s silent, though, just nibbling on her lip, pulling her arm away from the table and rolling her sleeve back down.  She’s only this quiet when she’s _really_ upset, so everyone knows the answer.  The aftereffects haven't been this obvious in a long while, not since they first knew her, but the "again" from Doreah's lips (who would know better than any of them anymore) doesn't surprise them, either.

“Motherfucker,” Kovarro exclaims.  “What’d he do?”

“You know how sometimes you can run into a table, or slam up against a shelf, and nothing comes of it at all?” Dany asks.  “Then other times, it turns practically purple?  Turns out when it’s someone else doing the slamming, it’s much more likely to be the second.”

“You should tell someone,” Aggo suggests.

“It’s not that simple,” Dany mutters, and she doesn’t even seem like herself when she says, “Sometimes these things just happen.”

Then, all at once:

"Oh, sweetling, no."  Irri, weary.

“They don’t have to.”  Jhiqui, plaintive.

“You shouldn’t put up with that shit.”  Kovarro, determined.

“That asshole’s lucky I’m not in any condition to fight.” Rakharo, venomous.

Dany opens her mouth to respond, but once again, no sound comes out; her eyes are starting to water, or at least that’s how it looks to Doreah.  “Look, I’m sorry I brought it up,” she whispers in Dany’s ear.  “This isn’t the time or place, okay?  We’ll talk later if you want to.”

“Okay,” Dany mouths, then with a shake of her head, she’s dry-eyed and grinning again.  “Sorry to steal the conversation, Rakharo.  Coffee’s on me.”

And there will be no more discussion of that.


	18. and I watch the world ignite, now the smoke has cleared

_> >Hey love.  Having a nice time?_

“Dany, sweets, your phone’s going off,” Arianne shouts.

“Ringing or just a message?” Dany calls back, pushing out of the swimming pool and tilting her head.

“Just a message,” Arianne confirms.  “Promise I didn’t peek, but the screen’s saying from Doreah?”

“Oh!”

Arianne already has an extra towel laid out on the lounge chair, which Dany gratefully dries off with and wraps around herself before reaching for her phone.

“Doreah, that’s the girlfriend, right?” Arianne prompts.

“Hm?  Oh, yes, uhm, she is,” Dany agrees after she’s able to tear her eyes away from the phone. 

“You really like her,” Arianne observes.  “I know that face.  That’s not just a happy face, that’s a stupidly sappy happy face.”

“I do,” Dany agrees.  “We make sense together.”

“One of these days I’m going to have to meet her, you know,” Arianne says, adding even though it’s not entirely applicable, “Family responsibility.”

“Yes, well, I’m sure you’d make a better impression on her than certain other family members have,” Dany sighs after a moment, glancing down at her stomach.  She’d had to borrow a one-piece from Arianne for this trip, the skin of her midriff is in no condition to be seen by the public and they both know why.

“Anyone would,” Arianne declares, lying back in her chair again.  “How many times do I have to tell you, sweetling, you’re allowed to drop everything and come crash with me and mine any time.”

“Not that easy,” Dany replies, like she always does.  “And not that safe.  For either of us.”

 “You being with your brother isn’t safe, either,” Arianne points out.

“Better the hells you know,” Dany sighs.

“That’s fucked up,” Arianne says bluntly.

“Most things are.”

 

* * *

 

The way she explained it to Doreah is this:

A few years ago, back when Myspace was still a thing, Dany got a message on there from a girl named Arianne who was a few years older than her.  They’d never met before, but Arianne explained who she was pretty quickly.  She lived in London, had her whole life, and her father’s younger sister had in fact been Dany’s brother’s wife, the one that mothered his children and got killed along with him.  The Martells were not as a rule a criminal bunch, Elia’s marriage to Rhaegar had been their only real connection to that life, so they hadn’t ever had real problems being safe and successful in the more aboveground business world.

Maybe it was because Dany had recently fallen in with the kids and she was a little happier and more confident around others than she'd previously been, maybe because she’d never had a real tie to most of her family before (even though a brother’s wife’s niece isn’t really anything but another person), but she kept up with Arianne.  They made friends, they got on well enough – similar enough interests – and Dany sometimes confided in her, things she couldn’t tell even Irri and Jhiqui (the safety of the typed word and its slight remove).

The first time they met for real was a few months after Dany lost Drogo.  She’d mentioned it in one of their messages, then she couldn’t stop mentioning it, and somehow Arianne’s response to this was to take the train down to Surrey, pick Dany up, and whisk her off to St. Ives for a week at a spa resort, all courtesy of the credit card her father had put in her name for emergencies.

And that’s the pattern of Dany-and-Arianne.  They can go months without talking in any serious way, not for a reason but just because they’re busy, but every so often Arianne will drop everything and appear for an all-expenses-paid fairy-godmother holiday.  They don’t talk about everything, but they talk about enough things; Arianne knows most of Dany’s dirty secrets (though not the baby that wasn’t, she still hasn’t told that to anyone but Doreah) and she’s good at knowing when she’s needed.

 

* * *

 

_> >The weather’s nice, I’m relaxing, Ari’s cool as ever.  It’s good for me._

“If I’d have known you’d just be texting your girlfriend all week, I’d have planned to bring her along,” Arianne teases.  “’Course, then I’d have had to bring one of mine too, just to counterbalance, but that wouldn’t have been so bad.  I bet M would like this kind of thing.”

Arianne always refers to whoever she’s seeing by nicknames and initials unless it’s serious, and it’s almost never too serious.  She’s usually seeing someone, boys or girls or it doesn’t really matter (but lately, it’s usually girls; this nonchalance toward orientation is why she’s also the first person Dany mentioned she might also like girls to) and she’s made it clear that while she enjoys the company of others, she’s in no hurry to find her _other_.

Dany flips her phone shut, reaches for her virgin margarita.  “Sorry, sorry,” she laughs.  “We should do that someday, though.  At summer break, maybe?  We could make a proper retreat of it, me and Reah, you and – whoever.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Arianne agrees.  “Like a silly vacation film.”

“Except instead of all the girls going off together and hooking up with tanned local men, they’re going off together and hooking up with each other,” Dany quips, eyes twinkling.

“But in a classy way,” Arianne adds.  “Not like one of those gross porn films.  _Lesbian Beach Party 43_ or something.”

“Ew,” Dany says.  “Does that actually exist?”

“Gods, I hope not,” Arianne chuckles.  “You ever noticed how lesbian porn, despite being about lesbians, is really for straight men?”

“Most porn is,” Dany points out.  “But yeah, it’s weird.”

“And frustrating,” Arianne continues, oblivious to any of the nearby people who might be listening in and getting scandalized (she usually is).  “I mean, sometimes I just wanna get myself off to a couple of pretty girls doing each other, you know?   But it’s really hard to get excited about what’s clearly some guy’s oiled-up, impersonal fantasy.  ‘Oh, I’m just so sad that he cheated on me.  I know, I’ll bang my cute friend to get revenge despite the fact that he’d probably be more titillated than upset by it since it doesn’t mean anything!’”  She rolls her eyes at Dany, sighing.  “And that is the opposite of sexy.”

“Believe me, I know,” Dany says.  “It’s like, some guys just can’t fathom that something might exist that’s not only for their gratification, and if it _does_ , if two girls have a thing and it’s real and it’s not just to get attention from guys and it makes the girls _happy_ , the guys just can’t wrap their heads around it.  They love to watch but as soon as they can’t it sends them flying into a rage.”

“Hey,” Arianne murmurs, seeing the shadow that’s crossed Dany’s face.  “Hey, kid.  You okay?”

“Some people are dicks,” Dany concludes, but she manages a little bit of a smile.  “You know that, I know that.  Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on a tangent there.”

“It’s good for you to,” Arianne says, reaching for Dany’s hand.

 

* * *

 

There wasn’t a clear-cut something to set Viserys off (Doreah can’t help but observe that it does rather coincide with Dany’s officially telling him that they were an item, or maybe it’s just that they’re getting closer to when it’s time to think about uni and Dany’s starting to want to wander) but it hasn’t been good lately.  Illyrio doesn’t do anything about it, even though there’s no way he can’t know, and despite the fact that everyone’s told her more than once she should tell someone official, it’s the one thing that Dany’s still timid about.  (With reason, Doreah’s always quick to defend.  She knows it can be harder than anything to speak up about this stuff, even though it hurts her to see the evidence.)

All it took was Arianne noticing the edge of a bruise on Dany’s skin in one of the her-and-Doreah pictures she’d sent along for another spa trip to be set in motion, and not half a day into winter break, Arianne was on Dany’s doorstep with a suitcase and a printout reservation for what’s become “their” resort, dragging her out before Viserys could find a reason not to allow it.  It’s the least a brother’s wife’s niece can do.

The story they’ve been telling is that Arianne’s bringing her cousin Dany (close enough) to the spa because Dany was recently in a rough, but not at all fatal or technically injuring, car wreck.  This explains why her body’s so screwed up, why she’s got bruises and scratches scattered on her skin, but only barely.  Nobody’s going to suspect it’s any less than true, though, not with Arianne’s father paying so handsomely.

(Dany still hasn’t actually met the rest of the Martells, but that’s mostly just because of the nature of her and Arianne’s get-togethers.  Someday, maybe, if it ever feels like a good idea for her to be in London.  But she knows of them and they know of her and it’s not _so_ weird.)

 

* * *

 

_> >I’m glad you’re having fun.  Still miss you though._

“Tell me about this M, then,” Dany says over dinner.

“She’s your age, for one,” Arianne begins.  “And she’s a dancer.”

“ _Well_ ,” Dany laughs.  “That explains it.  Like you’re a dancer, the burlesque stuff, or…?”

“Ballet, mostly,” Arianne says.  “We met at the studio, she’d seen one of the shows, one thing led to another.”

“Cute,” Dany declares.

“Yeah, I think her older brother knows my uncle, too,” Arianne adds.  “But then again, I’m pretty sure the entire city could claim to know my uncle.  Oberyn, of course.”

“Of course,” Dany echoes.  She’s heard enough stories of him to understand.

“Anyway, she’s a cute girl,” Arianne continues.  “And thankfully she’s not looking for anything serious either.”

“How is it,” Dany muses playfully, “That you’re a woman grown but I’m the one who keeps winding up in serious relationships?”

“Temperament,” Arianne shrugs.  “It’s not like you’ve never messed around, you’ve just found a couple of keepers, too.”

“I guess so,” Dany agrees.  “I’m just not as good at getting close to someone if it’s clearly not gonna last somehow, that’s probably part of it too.”  And her eyes dart to one of the bruises on her arm.

“Don’t think anyone would blame you for that, sweets,” Arianne says.  “Hey, how would you feel about waving the waiter over and getting one of those chocolate lava cakes to split?”


	19. I held the fort and I swung my sword

When Dany first feels her phone buzz against her hip, her brother and Illyrio are doing some well-practiced routine of jokes for the benefit of the party’s host, some stocky man between the ages of forty-five and sixty (it’s always a stocky man between the ages of forty-five and sixty, and Dany doesn’t bother to try to narrow it down and more than that in her mind, they blend together so).  She’s been trying to at least act like she’s not completely disgusted, that’s usually her job at these things, play sociable like the society girl she’s never properly been.

The jokes have gone from dull to offensive when her phone goes off again, the buzzes long this time instead of short, meaning a call and not just a text.  Her non-expression (not showing revulsion, not showing concern about the call, not showing anything) doesn’t betray her intention, and when she excuses herself under the guise of “female trouble” they don’t notice she’s being sarcastic.

>> _Sorry, love, I had to wait for a good moment to get away._

At least this is one of those houses with a fancy Old Hollywood bathroom, with the dressing table and the chaise lounge and all manner of nice places to hide.  It belongs, presumably, to the hostess, who offered it when Dany had gone off to ask her, and Dany accepted in a heartbeat, after grabbing a glass of wine.  Good girl she’s been playing, she hasn’t had but a sip of anything alcoholic all night, and gods she needs it.

>> _Do you want me to come rescue you?_

Dany, curled up on the chaise lounge with her shoes kicked off and her feet tucked under her, takes a minute to frown at the screen of her phone before replying.

>> _I don’t want you getting mixed up in all this_.

All this meaning the party, the attempted society, anything at all regarding Viserys.

And Doreah, sitting up in her bedroom with some Jane Austen thing on the telly, knows this.  She wants to tell her girlfriend to calm down, calm down, it’s fine, she wouldn’t have offered if she wasn’t up for it (and she knows that’s what Dany’s sorting through, she can imagine the faces Dany’s making as she types out her reply and edits it).

>> _Can you talk at least?_

Dany knows she shouldn’t, this stupidly plush bathroom is far removed from the party but maybe not _that_ far, but she can’t be bothered to care.  She needs it.

>> _Let me call you._

“Reah?” she whispers once she hears the pick-up.

“Hey,” Doreah murmurs.  “You doing okay?”

“No,” Dany laughs bitterly.  “I swear, all this just gets worse and worse.”

“Nobody needs their ass kicked, right?” Doreah asks.

“I think a lot of them could do with a good scolding,” Dany declares.  “But no, mostly it’s just – I dunno.”  She rolls her eyes, takes a breath.  “It’s pathetic.  They all think they’re so fancy, and my brother thinks if he just acts it well enough he’ll get let into their little club.  It’s pathetic.”

“I’m sorry, sweetling,” Doreah says.  “Seriously, if you wanna just blow it off I’ll meet you somewhere.”

“How about you meet me in London,” Dany suggests with another of those laughs, like she’s not _quite_ kidding.  “We could crash with Ari and hide away from all this.”

“Yeah?” Doreah chuckles.  It’s not the first time they’ve talked like this, she knows it’s mostly a joke but that talking this way makes Dany feel better.  “What’d we do there?”

“What do you wanna do?” Dany shoots back, giggling.  “I feel like I get to plan all of our trips.  It’s your turn to.”

She can just imagine the way Doreah’s shaking her head, going just a bit pink, and in turn Doreah can imagine the wide-eyed look Dany’s wearing, especially after she’s dropped her voice low and said, “For starters, I wanna spend a day and a night away from everyone else, getting to be alone with you like we never get to here.”

Dany takes another deep breath, this one audible and shuddery.  “Go on,” she mumbles.

“This whole day and night, we’re not going to put any clothes on,” Doreah continues.  “Oh, and do you think Arianne would buy us some booze?”

“Almost certainly,” Dany says.

“Excellent, because I’ve suddenly got this crazy idea about –”

Suddenly there’s a frenzied knocking on the door.

“Reah, I have to go,” Dany whispers.

“Princess?” Doreah murmurs.  “Are you – is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Dany says, but the speed with which she hangs up immediately sets Doreah to worrying.

Dany tucks her phone back in her pocket and marshals her calm, going to the door and offering a smile to her brother, though he’s shaking the door and looks plainly furious.  Better to meet it head-on, diffuse the situation.

“What’s the matter?” she asks him as sweetly as she can.

“The matter?” Viserys hisses.  “You’ve been hiding in this bathroom, no doubt telling your degenerate slut all sorts of lies, when you’re supposed to be down at the party like I so nicely asked you to be making a good showing.”

Dany rolls her eyes, politely pushing past him and toward the staircase landing.  “It’s not worth arguing over,” she says.

He’s on her heels, though.  “Oh, there’s nothing to argue about,” he says.  “You’re deliberately defying me and it needs to stop.”

By now they’re in full view of the guests in the main floor’s foyer, and more than a few heads are turning as Viserys grabs a fistful of Dany’s hair, pushes her against the wall above the stairs.

“Stop,” Dany murmurs.  “You’re making a scene.”

“You’re the one making a scene,” Viserys retorts, tightening his other hand around her arm.  It’s the least clever retort possible, in all honesty.

“Stop,” Dany repeats.  “People are watching.  Do you really want them to see you acting like this?”

“I think everyone here understands that when insolent little girls don’t show manners, they need to be taught,” Viserys hisses.

Dany’s gaze hardens, she takes a deep breath.  “I’m not a little girl, Viserys,” she whispers.  “Now fucking let go of me.”


	20. strike the match, play it loud, giving love to the world

“Thank the gods for this weekend,” Doreah murmurs, resting her head on Dany’s shoulder.

“Agreed,” Dany says, sighing happily.  “I mean, thank Arianne, too, it was her idea.”

“Oh, I’m gonna buy her the nicest alcohol I can afford,” Doreah agrees with a chuckle.  The train rumbles to a start, slightly dislodging them, and they both break into giggles.  “And her cousins.  It’s nice of Ella to let us stay with them even though they’ve never met us.”

“Well, we’re prospective students there, aren’t we,” Dany smiles.  “It’s only reasonable a current student would put us up.”  After all, that’s the excuse they’ve been rolling with: given that Arianne’s cousins are Sands and not Martells (and that he can’t be bothered to think things through), Viserys doesn’t even know there’s any connection between them beyond this university tour weekend, and that’s how Dany would like to keep it for the time being.

“Put us up and take us to a crazy theatre department party,” Doreah adds.

“Well, of course!  The university life encompasses social activities as much as academics,” Dany exclaims.  “And given that you might actually be interested in performing…”

Doreah nods.  “It makes sense,” she agrees.  “And anyway, I’m glad that we get a weekend to ourselves.  Between school and our jobs…”

“Our appreciated but mind-numbing part-time jobs,” Dany cuts in.

“Between all that, plus… family stuff,” Doreah continues, “I feel like we haven’t had time in ages.”

“Well,” Dany says, “this weekend I’m all yours.  I promise.”

 

* * *

 

One of Ella’s housemates, a quiet kid who introduces himself as Armen, lets them in when they arrive; Ella, he explains, is already over setting up for the party and will meet them there, but he’ll be glad to escort them once they’ve freshened up and got their stuff dropped off in the guest room.

For a guest room in a house full of uni students (many of them boys), it’s surprisingly nice, no spots in the carpet or holes in the drapes or trash on the floor; when Doreah drops her duffel on the floor and falls backward on the bed, it doesn’t make any alarming squeaking noises or cave underneath her.  “Not bad,” she says, and she reaches for Dany’s hand to pull her down as well, or more accurately pull her on top of her.

“Hello,” Dany teases, leaning down to give Doreah a soft kiss.

“Hi,” Doreah returns.  “Want me to do your hair?”

“Mm, sure,” Dany coos.  “That means we’ll have to move, though.”

“In a minute,” Doreah decides, bringing Dany closer for a kiss.

 

* * *

 

A minute ends up being significantly longer, of course, between the kisses and the showers that both girls decide to take (better now than after the party, no telling how late they’ll be out), but eventually they’re wrapped in towels and ready to go.  Doreah dries Dany’s hair carefully (it takes nearly half an hour between its length and how thick it is, but they’re used to that) and sets it in hot rollers, then Dany returns the favor and curls Doreah’s hair more loosely with an iron.

“Gods,” she murmurs, brushing a lock out of Doreah’s eyes.  “You’re beautiful, you know.”

“I know,” Doreah replies lightly, striking a pose before she hops back on the bed and wraps arms around Dany’s waist.  “You’re sweet to me.”

“You deserve that,” Dany says very adamantly.  “How long do you want to leave the rollers in?”

“How long can we put off showing up at the party?” Doreah counters.  “It technically started about twenty minutes ago.”

“We shouldn’t be _too_ late,” Dany muses, “but I’m sure Ari and her cousins will understand.”

“Mm, good,” Doreah says, shifting to put her hands on Dany’s shoulders and start to massage.  “I’m just greedy for a little more time with you.  Just you.”

“I am too,” Dany whispers, her head dropping forward as she luxuriates in Doreah’s touch.  “It’ll be nice in a couple of years, won’t it?  When we can get out and just _be_ without interruption?”

“Yeah,” Doreah agrees.  She focuses her attention on a particularly nasty spot for a moment before adding, “Wherever we are.  Whatever we’re doing.”

“Yeah,” Dany echoes, the word coming out in a long, relieved sigh.  “You amaze me.”

“Same goes, sweetling,” Doreah murmurs.  She keeps up just rubbing Dany’s shoulders in silence some minutes more, then presses a kiss to Dany’s neck before saying, “Okay, time to get the rollers out.”

“Thank you,” Dany says softly.

“Of course,” Doreah replies before starting to unpin said rollers and comb Dany’s hair out over her shoulders, mindful that her streaks (purple now) are showcased and arranged perfectly.  When all is said and done she takes barrettes and pulls a piece of hair back on either side, then she settles in front of Dany to admire.  “Perfect,” she says.

“I’m taking your word for it,” Dany teases.  “Let’s dress and get out of here.”

 

* * *

 

Armen escorts them to the party – it’s officially sponsored by the theatre department and held in an off-campus house significantly grander than the one belonging to Ella and their friends, even – and disappears into the crowd, shouldering his old-fashioned musket and straightening his red tailcoat, with promises to take them back if they get tired.  And then they’re left to mingle, and suddenly it’s more Doreah’s element than Dany’s.

“Drinks?” Dany asks, her voice pitching high.

“Drinks,” Doreah agrees, taking Dany’s hand and steering her toward what appears to be the kitchen.  “Did Ari tell you what they’re all dressed as, so we can spot them?”

“Roxy Horror,” Dany giggles.

“Rocky Horror?” Doreah corrects hesitantly.

“Nah, Roxy Horror, because they’re all girls,” Dany amends.  “It sounds cute.  It’s her and her cousins and her girlfriend and her girlfriend’s friend.”

Doreah smiles, reaches for two bottles of beer from the nearest cooler.  “Neat,” she agrees.

 

* * *

  

“So Dany,” Nym says, turning on her side to regard them and propping herself up on her elbow.  “Tell us about yourself.  Ari’s been weirdly secretive.”

“It’s not like you couldn’t have sought her out yourselves,” Arianne rolls her eyes.

“It’s not like you couldn’t have included us in your spa weekends,” Tyene counters.

“I promise you’re all invited next time,” Arianne says.  “Stop whinging.”

“Well,” Dany says hesitantly, and Doreah squeezes her hand just in case.  “You know the whole sordid backstory, so I don’t need to get into that –”

“I don’t know it,” Sansa chimes in, wrinkling her nose in apology.

“Tell you later,” Obara whispers.  “It’s not for parties.”

Sansa nods.  “Sorry,” she says.  “Keep going.”

Dany offers a smile that’s meant to comfort (Sansa can’t help but think she looks like a Disney princess).  “And I’m really not all _that_ interesting,” she says.  “Going to school, working part-time in a clothing shop, spending what time I can away from my asshat brother and with my friends and my girlfriend.”  She gives Doreah a significant look and after she receives a quick kiss in return (Tyene and Nym go “ _awww_ ” in response).

“And I’m just in the same boat as Dany,” Doreah says.  “More or less.  Except my job’s at the front desk of a photography studio and I don’t have an asshat brother to avoid, ‘less you count Dany’s.  What about all of you?”

“Uni, jobs, the usual,” Obara says, then with a playful nudge to Sansa’s shoulder:  “’Cept the babies here.”

Sansa colors.  “We’re not babies,” she mumbles sheepishly.

Margaery – who’s regal as anything in Arianne’s lap, and Dany definitely understands the appeal – smirks.  “Compared to these wild things, we’re babies,” she amends.  “They’re none of them nearly as boring as Bara’s making them sound.”

“You know I’ve got the burlesque stuff,” Arianne jumps in to say.  “Ty plays sometimes if she’s not too preoccupied.  Nym does derby, Obara rides horses, Ella and their friends have the theatre stuff.”

“Ari tells me you might be interested in that too?” Ella says to Doreah.

“I might, yeah,” Doreah nods.  “I don’t have hardly any experience with it, but…”

“Everyone starts somewhere,” Ella shrugs.  “We can talk it through later, yeah?”

While they’ve sidelined, Dany has struck up a conversation with Obara about horses – they’re an old, mostly-forgotten passion of hers, Doreah knows, and she can talk about them for hours if she gets going, so it’s no surprise to see that beginning to happen – and Margaery’s leaned to whisper something in Arianne’s ear, something that’s got Arianne’s eyebrow shot up.

“We’re gonna… be right back,” Arianne murmurs as Margaery hops off her lap and pulls her to standing.  “Don’t scare them off, any of you.”

“We would never,” Tyene says sweetly, waving as the girlfriends make for the stairs.

And once they’re out of earshot Sansa bursts out laughing.

“What?” Dany asks.

“Margaery,” Sansa says.  “She pretends like she’s so aloof and _cool_ , but she’s really, she’s really a needy kitten rubbing around Arianne’s ankles mewing for attention.”

Obara gives Tyene a pointed look.  “Did you spike her drink after all?” she mouths.

“I might have a little,” Tyene returns, the picture of innocence.

 

* * *

 

“Too many boys came dressed as Les Amis,” Sansa complains. Her entire upper half is flopped over Obara’s lap and Obara (when she’s not glaring daggers at Tyene) is idly petting her hair as a sort of comfort.

“It’s easy,” Doreah and Nym point out in unison.

“Yeah, but none of them are cute enough,” Sansa pouts. She looks up at Obara, all glassy-eyed and content. “You’d be a cuter Enjolras than any of these guys.”

Ella laughs. “I could see it,” they say, nodding at their sister. “You’ve got that air of idealism.”

“Excuse me,” Obara exclaims, sounding offended.

“Meant sweetly,” Ella points out.

“I’d take it so,” Dany agrees.

“You’d be a good Enjolras too,” Sansa declares, lazily pointing at Dany. “You’d have to do, like, explicitly girl Enjolras, though, I think. Punk girl Enjolras. 1980s punk rock band girl Enjolras. _Runaways era girl Enjolras_.”

“She’s cute when she’s drunk,” Tyene stage-whispers to Nym.

“Thank you, I think?” Dany laughs. She turns to Doreah, tosses her hair and asks, “You agree?”

“Oh, yes,” Doreah says. “You’d lead a revolution brilliantly.”

Dany beams, kisses Doreah’s cheek. “Thank you, too,” she murmurs.

Arianne and Margaery appear behind the couches, nodding to the thinning crowd. “So,” Arianne says loudly. “It’s getting late and the party’s wearing down and M was thinking we hit one of those all-night diners.”

“Looks like _someone_ needs a little food in their tummy,” Margaery adds, pointing at Sansa and adding, “Yes, you,” when met with Sansa’s offended stare.

Dany and Doreah exchange glances. “I’m good for it,” Doreah says.

“Sounds like an adventure,” Dany agrees, smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Runs simultaneous to Make Your Flowers Grow's [chapter 6](http://archiveofourown.org/works/834555/chapters/5479271).


End file.
